


A Flower Bloomed in Darkness, the Moon Above the Sea

by oneforyourfire



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Arranged Marriage, Bisexuality, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-18 09:29:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 51,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13678932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneforyourfire/pseuds/oneforyourfire
Summary: The stars have decided. You are exactly what the Doh Kingdom, what he, needs (aka sudi get arrange married in a pseudo-goryeo dynasty au)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> happy sixth year anniversary, [sudi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxR3iv9qBCo)
> 
>  
> 
> i'll add warnings per chapter as they become relevant
> 
> warnings: coerced mutual masturbation

Conquering armies, at least in the past, had the decency to march into their territories with soldiers, horses, imperial flags. Their war banners blood-red or vibrant, vibrant gold, emblazoned with terrifying, gilded dragons. An open, brazen, bold, bold threat.

Conquering armies, at least in the past, had the decency to brandish their swords, dress their war horses, don their iron-plated armor, draw their arrows. Had the decency to call it conquest. To demand surrender. To pillage. To tear. To ruin. To swallow whole those that stood in their way.

Conquering armies, at least in past, were honest about the fear they wished to inspire. The fealty they were willing to force.

The Doh Kingdom, they lack decency.

 

They call this liberation. Unification. Auguring a new, great era of prosperity, of enlightenment, of luxury, of wealth unimaginable. They call this clemency. They call it a mercy. A half-conquest, half-surrender, half-pillage, half-tearing, half-ruin. And Joonmyun, disenfranchised, deposed, debilitated, he is merely a half-prize. A powdered, pretty, pliant thing—plaything—to ease tensions, to underscore their half-surrender. Diplomacy, tribute, a gift. Like the coffer of fine jewels, gold, pottery, soldiers, horses, spices that his family has offered as tribute, the half-surrender, half-allegiance that their cowed king—Joonmyun's father—has tossed in offering at the conquering, liberating, unifying, clement, merciful, wondrous new king.

Conquering armies, at least in the past, had the decency to admit there was no choice in the matter.

Not a half-truth of suggestion, coercion, the implied bite of imperial forces should they refuse.

Conquering armies of yore, Joonmyun would prefer them, the barefaced brutality of them. The cruel efficiency of them.

 

It had been merely a suggestion, incidental and informal, their casual request for information on the disenfranchised, deposed, debilitated heir's Four Pillars and Eight Characters. Had been casual, too, merely an invitation, their subsequent proposal of a wedding in the late winter. They were a blessed match, heaven-approved, a perfect harmony of yin and yang, earth and water, an auspicious pairing. It would be best right after the New Year, right as the people are greeting the new cycle with revelry, with change, with hope, with family, with unity. Right as the Earth started to thrum with new beginnings. Hints of the returning birds—magpies—and how they would sing. The flowers and how they would bloom. The sun and how it would shine. The rain and how it would come, bless the people anew.

And it had been an agreement. An alliance. A choice. An honest, honest choice. Even if it was never really Joonmyun’s.

But it’s still a conquest, still a loss, even though they know better than to use those terms, and Joonmyun chokes on the thick lump of half-indignation, half-fear in his throat as he's ushered—naked and trembling and indignant and afraid—into the fragrant, steaming bath waters. The Palace Matron's hand burns against the nape of his neck, then along his bared shoulder, and Joonmyun trembles.

He had scarcely been given enough time to pack what he would of his belongings—his books, his clothing, mementos from his siblings and his parents—barely given a chance to make one last offering at his ancestral shrine, to blink past the stinging tears blurring his vision as he'd begged, begged, begged for their protection, for their guidance—before being taken to the Doh Kingdom. Along with a mountain of fine jewels, gold, pottery, soldiers, horses, spices, the sworn fealty of a broken, conquered kingdom.

They had waved their banners then, on their return, had had at least that decency.

Had had also the decency of locking the doors tight when he had arrived. Keeping him caged _properly_.

Joonmyun's entire life, entire world since then has been this detached place, the Palace Matrons, the court ladies, his dreaded, dreadful purpose, their lessons, their attempts to train him for his new station as their Crown Prince, their pretty, painted, pliant plaything. The Doh and their palace niceties. Regal duties and expectations. Proper royal etiquette.

There’s a process to this. A method. A ritual. A purpose, his own.

They have completed the preliminary festivities already. The proposal ceremony, his installation, Joonmyun sent wedding gifts, accepted the Crown Prince’s decree and his jewelry. He has already been crowned royalty, accepted the bows of those that would be his subjects. Those that would call him their Princess, then later their Queen. Heard the monstrous resounding rise of the people’s warbled cries, seen the unnerving dance of their writhing, bodies—joyous, he'd thought, celebratory—but ringing and violent and unsettling and overwhelming.

Joonmyun, he has already completed most of the steps of this process, method, ritual, and oh, today, it's the last, terrifying one. Oh, today, his life, his world, it expands.

"You're lucky,” the Palace Matron says, and the oil she slides down his spine makes his skin prickle. Her fingers whisper over his tense shoulders, down the knobs of his spine, over his hips, between his thighs, and he jerks forward, shudders monumentally. The peach blossoms they’ve decorated the water with shiver as he does. He fists at several with his quivering fingers, then tears at them when she coaxes him into turning. "Many men and women were rejected,” she says. "You're lucky. You were chosen. You were fated. The stars,” she says.

And she smooths over his chest, his stomach, between his legs once more. Thorough, but cursory. Then scoops fragrant water down his quivering shoulders. Combs warm, gentle, startlingly tender fingers through his hair.

"Lucky," she says. Then "Deserving." Then "Beautiful." Then "Your Majesty."

And he's patted dry. And he's swathed in exquisite silk. And shivering, he’s led back to his chambers for the very last time.

And there's a process to this, too. A method. A ritual. In making Joonmyun a pretty, painted, pliant plaything for the spoiled, entitled Doh, their spoiled, entitled, _superior_ Crown Prince. To making him proper. Deferential. Sweet-smelling, too. Smooth-skinned, too. Unmarred, too. Terrified and helpless and cowed, too.

The Palace Matron sweeps her fingers though his hair, holds him through the tremor that wracks through his entire body. Her eyes are soft, touch softer, and the warmth, the gentle regard, the tenderness, it nearly undoes him.

And he's terrified and he's helpless and panic constricts around his throat and he can't can't can't be a—doll for him. Not a good enough doll, he knows. He will get thrown away, he knows. He will get sent back broken and used up and ugly, and his family will have to find another way to even—

Wheezing, he trembles so hard, he knocks over one of the cosmetic boxes on the table, shattering it in a mess of oil and green-glazed shards, trembling even harder at the sound, maybe sobbing, maybe maybe maybe begging for them to please just—

The Palace Matron cups his face, tilts him upwards, meets his eyes. Smooths her fingers into his cheekbones. Rough, insistent, but soothing. Then over his throat, along his scalp, kneading into the base of his skull.

“The stars picked you and for a reason, Your Highness,” she insists. And the soft sweep of her thumb across his earlobes—it’s nearly like a kiss. Like a mother’s kiss.

Another woman slides behind him, massages sweet, sweet oil—camellia—into the ends of his hair then up, up, up towards his raised scalp, humming in agreement.

Joonmyun, he can barely bear it.

"He is a little rougher, Your Crown Prince,” the Palace Matron says, twisting her fingers through his hair, then twisting them tighter, tighter, tighter, enough to send tingles down his scalp, through his sensitized limbs. “Rougher than his father. He is a soldier, you know. Supreme Commander. He is untamed, unrefined, a tiger on the fields. Fierce, but noble, too. Good, too. He will be good to you,” she adds after a beat, and he shivers as she affixes his top knot. Then a cap to hold it in place. “Your Crown Prince. Your King. The stars have decided. You are exactly what the Doh Kingdom, what he, needs. ”

And she’s reaching for a cosmetic case, tilting him back, angling him properly in the candlelight.

Her brush sweeps over his cheeks, warm, gentle, achingly tender. Clinks against the edge of a glazed ceramic case. Then over his lips. Clinks against the edge of another glazed ceramic case. Whispers over his eyelids. Clinks once more.

And he shudders once more at the gentle, gentle brush of her fingers against his earlobes. More ornamentation. Gold, jade, imported glass.

He is beautiful, she tells him again. The most beautiful person that she has ever seen pass through these walls. And her voice, too, it’s warm, gentle, tender, _placating_ , the way one might speak to a recalcitrant child, and Joonmyun's skin raises with aborted emotion, and it aches. And he swallows and he blinks and he aches.

Even from the detached palace, even from leagues away in this tiny, tiny cage of a universe, he can hear the music already, the festivities, can imagine them, too. The flutter of fine, silk skirts, the graceful glide of fanned arms, the play of light across the terrifying red lacquered masks.

The pompous extravagance, the pageantry, the revelry, the regality, the beauty, the grace. The utter horror of it.

Joonmyun is urged to feet, wrapped tight, tight, tight in his wedding robes, reassured once more that he is beautiful. Then once more that this was chosen by the stars. Then that it is time to start. He has practiced. He knows.

She finishes affixing the gilded chains of his beautiful clothing, ornamental headpiece, puts the final touches on making Joonmyun pretty and painted and imprisoned, and Joonmyun is painfully conscious with every slight tilt of his head of just how helpless he is. As he's ushered, led, forced, abducted onto his palanquin.

And after weeks, it's finally finally finally _real_.

This moment, neck aching against the heavy, heavy weight of his ornate, golden, beaded, bejeweled headpiece, suffocated with crushing, crushing dread, it’s Joonmyun’s worst yet. And he claws at his own knees in an attempt to ground himself as the palanquin sways then rises then glides beneath his feet.

Joonmyun's robes are silk, embroidered with gold, a red so vibrant that not even Joonmyun’s nosebleed can dull its splendor, not even the monumental quiver of his entire body can wrinkle the fabric. He is still as beautiful as he needs to be. Still the doll that Doh need him to be.

The royal procession is achingly vibrant red and blue and gold and black and silver, imperial, terrifying beautiful, and the palanquin continues to sway nauseatingly beneath his feet as the music swells and swells and swells and swells, his fear and indignation and anger and impotent, gnawing, clawing hopelessness, too, swell and swell and swell. His hands tense around the golden poles, rings clinking against the metal as he breathes consciously through the bombastic cacophony of drums, strings, flutes. Powerful and resounding and terrifyingly unsettling.

The court ladies, their arms around his shoulders, his waist are just as arresting as they have been in the past, just as inescapable. And the court ladies— _his_ court ladies—and their steadying, guiding, arresting touch, remind him—again—of when to bow and how deep and when to rise and not to stumble and not to tremble and not not not to run away from his duty, his commitment. He was chosen, whether he chose in turn or not. He was chosen. He was fated. The stars, they aren’t mistaken.

But oh, if Joonmyun had only had a choice, if this had only been presented as what it really was—conquest and captivity. But oh, if the Doh only had the deceny—

And oh, oh, he’s scarcely given the chance to right his footing before he’s being urged forward again. Faster. More poised. More regal. More commanding. He has practiced. He has learned. He knows. He was chosen. He was fated.

And oh, the oceans of people again, the furious, animated crescendo of their voices, and the music all the while. And his duty and his purpose and his broken kingdom, broken crown, broken lineage, broken hope.

Led by the unnervingly steady, strong, strong arms around his shoulders, his waist, Joonmyun bows, meets the Crown Prince's gaze for the first time, bows once more.

He is handsome, small, but broad, his half-conquerer, half-savior, husband. He is as regal as a Crown Prince should be. And the noonday sun glitters off the polished gold and dangling jewel beads of his own headpiece as he bows in turn once, twice. Shining in the direct sunlight, he is almost too radiant to look at for too long, almost too blinding. But Joonmyun, he will have to look at him, only him, forever and ever and ever. He had been chosen, too, fated, too—for him, too.

It’s the reason for this entire festival. This process, method, ritual. The stars, they had said.

And Joonmyun is dizzy, lost in a dazzling, despairing daze through the rest of the ceremony, the rest of the festivities—only the faintest recollection of the King and Queen’s speeches, their bows, his parents’ own speeches, own bows, the terrified squawk and terrified swaying of the mandarin duck, the brief brush of the Crown Prince's when they united the trembling halves of their united gourd, the frightening crescendo of cheers, the swell of more awful, awful music, the colorful and ornate pillars of lavish palace food.

Seated on the throne, besides his husband, Joonmyun is reeling as people, his subjects all bow once more. Their Crown Prince, Crown Princess, Future King and Queen. Their rulers.

And the rest of the marriage festival, banquet passes in a similar haze, Joonmyun even more dizzy and dazed and despairing and dazzled, drumming restless fingers on the banquet table, forcing himself to swallow what he can.

Served with golden, silver utensils, on fine, tinkling glass, there's bread and chicken and fish and beef and wheat noodles and rice and rice wine and bubbling pots of stew and fruits and juices and rice cakes. Lavish, luxurious. And there’s lavish luxury even for the endless swells of commoners attending—rice cakes and meat skewers and endless jugs of wine.

It’s a kingdom-wide celebration, and Joonmyun, he feels like the only one that isn't elated, meets his husband's gaze and realizes belatedly that at least that might not be the case. Fortunately or unfortunately.

Joonmyun swallows more and more and more. Chokes on it. Aches with it. Lost in the excess and luxury and lavishness and revelry of those that would have themselves declared winners, uniters.

His bones rattle. And his body trembles with muted indignation and fear and hatred and dread and crushing, crushing sadness. And Joonmyun forces himself to swallows cupful after cupful after cupful or sweet rice wine, too. Until his head is spinning. Until he at least has an external for the nausea crawling up his throat.

Because he’s lost—his kingdom has lost—and belongs to them. A prize they have won and finally, finally claimed.

The Crown Prince's arm winds through his own. And his head spins and his body trembles and and he thrums with an acute, crushing, cold, cold sense of his dread as his shaky palms catch and drag against the endless, endless stretches of imposing, beautiful, awful painted columns, as his husband—his captor, his conquer, a Doh leads him to the chambers.

Terror—sudden and sharp—crawls up his throat, chokes around his lungs, and it is only the Crown Prince's arms around his waist that keep him upright, compel him forward.

To his doom, doom, doom. His new home.

There’s ceremonial, nuptial wine for them to drink, food for them to eat. And Joonmyun’s hands shake so badly, he can barely keep from spilling, further staining his fine, regal, foreign robes.

But oh, the process. Oh, the method. Oh, the ritual. Oh, his husband. Oh, the Doh.

He can see the silhouettes of people just outside the paper doors—the royal guards, the palace ladies, the king’s advisors—can see the way that the moonlight warps their shadows, casts them long and tall and awful and monstorous, and Joonmyun shudders at the sight, shudders even more heavily as the Crown Prince’s hands slide down his clothed arms. His palms catch on the fine silk, dragging over the gilded flowers and birds.

Guiding, guiding him to their marriage bed.

Oh, the process. Oh, the method. Oh, the ritual. Oh, oh, oh—

The Crown Prince looks harsher, harder, more terrifying in this light. Long and tall and awful. A monster, too. Looks more the man that would be king. Sharp enough to cut. Sharp enough to tear him open. The imperious tilt of his eyebrows, the regal cut of his jawline, the plush, imperial set of his lips.

He slides closer, and his breath burns against the quivering side of Joonmyun’s throat, lips grazing as his fingers sift through the rattling chains of Joonmyun’s gold headpiece, ease through the elaborate knots of his hair.

And it feels more like a conquest, like an honest one, the way he strips him bare, the way his fingers skip over his skin. Hot and bold and strong and assessing. Feels more like a real surrender, the way that Joonmyun tenses but bears it—bears at least as much as he can. Feels more like it for the vague hint of blood and violence and terror. The fact that there is not even the pretense of choice in the matter.

“Your Highness,” Joonmyun manages as the Crown Prince’s fingers tug at the bindings at his crotch, and his voice is so, so shaky, so, so small. The Crown Prince pauses, then drags Joonmyun’s palms to his own robes, an invitation, or more a command. Joonmyun's fingers tremble, fumble over the ties, stumble over a knotted, puckered scar on the Crown Prince’s waist, another on his hip.

And the light is even harder, harsher, sharp against the rippling muscles. A tiger, Joonmyun thinks. A mountain. A dragon. A soldier. A conquerer. A predator. And Joonmyun, the conquest, the prey. _His_.

Their chests brush, hips bump, and the Crown Prince’s heart is also racing. His cock, it’s also painfully soft.

“On the bed,” he says. “I won’t touch you,” he adds in a rushed, apologetic whisper. “But they can see, and we have to, we have to at least—at least—Do you understand? Will you—?"

Joonmyun nods slowly, and the Crown Prince slides a hand down Joonmyun’s front. The callouses on his palms scrape over his bellybutton, catch on the fine hair there, and his thumb kneads restlessly into his hipbone. Joonmyun's knees knock together as he breathes consciously through the touch.

He’s a soldier, Joonmyun knows. Supreme Commander, battle-worn, battle-tested, battle-scarred. And it’s most honest like this. Decent and bare-faced like this. A battle Joonmyun has lost like this. The Crown Prince urging him onto the bed, then caging him there with his body. No honeyed words to it. No artful promises. No pretense.

"The oils," he says when Joonmyun clenches his eyes shut and breathes and breathes and breathes. "We have to, have to—at least," he says. "Even if— _Please_.”

It spills across his fingers, his skin, pools on his bellybutton, slides across his hipbones, down into the sheets. A wet, hot kiss that sends prickles of goosebumps shuddering through his body.

And the Crown Prince is braced above him, knees at Joonmyun’s sides, one hand clenched in the sheets by Joonmyun’s shoulders, the other curled around himself, stroking, tight, fast, loud, loud, loud.

"You, too," he says. "At least try.”

Joonmyun, at least, does.

Above him, the Crown Prince is all hard, hard lines, regal, regal ruin, moaning softly as he strokes himself above him, and Joonmyun twists his head back into the soft pillows, closes his eyes once more, tries to focus on the sensations, the wet, smooth glide of his own hand, the heat of another body—a nameless, faceless, harmless, blameless, blameless body above him—on the pleasure he’s trying to wring by force from himself. And he’s almost, almost, almost there if he tries hard enough.

But the Crown Prince moans—just slightly louder—shatters even that lie, and Joonmyun has to clench his eyes tighter, squeeze his fist tighter, breath consciously, lie, lie, lie. His heels skate against the fine, fine silks, and heat courses through his veins. Joonmyun’s fist skates faster, needier, nearly, nearly there, a moan stuttering on the tip of his tongue. Just, just, just so long as he pretends.

And then, yes, yes, yes—just just just—

The Crown Prince tenses suddenly above him, moans startlingly long and loud as he spills hot and wet across Joonmyun’s belly.

Joonmyun tenses, registers the drag of his palm against his skin once more. He smears his release on the sheets between Joonmyun’s quivering thighs.

Shaking, writhing, moaning, moaning, Joonmyun watches his hands, the blunt, inelegant skip of his fingers across Joonmyun's speckled, moonlight-stark skin, and he shatters almost immediately, embraces it—that sweet, sweet ruin, the way it eclipses all the fear, the dread, the indignation, the hatred, the helplessness.

But it’s too dizzyingly brief, not nearly enough, and Joonmyun tenses once more as the Crown Prince’s hand settles on his skin again, gathers and smears again.

They had to at least, the Crown Prince, had said. At the very least.

They’ve settled for the bare minimum.

But there’s a painful, painful sharpness to the finality of that, too, as the warm glow of orgasm fades. There's only the painful, painful sharpness, the awful, cutting finality, even in this compromise of sorts, and Joonmyun blinks back tears, swallows to dislodge the thick lump in his throat—indignation still, fear still, but also an aching sort of yearning for the life he knows he has lost, the life he know they’ve taken, ruined. The Crown Prince. The Doh. The heavens.

And Joonmyun, he’s naked and raw and vulnerable and conquered and tarnished and claimed.

The silk feels sticky and stifling against his flushed, quivering skin. The heat of the Crown Prince’s body, even just the faintest kiss of it at his side, it sears.

This was the most auspicious day, they had said. Their stars so beautifully intertwined. And they twinkle so cruelly in the sky as Joonmyun clenches his eyes tight, and breathes and breathes and breathes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings: touch hunger, sadness, angst, panic, drinking as a coping mechanism, sad masturbation

The next morning, he is alone still, naked still, raw and vulnerable and conquered and tarnished and claimed—still. A crumpled heap of trembling paper limbs. The _Doh’s_. Chosen. Fated. 

As he had practiced. As he had learned. As he had known. 

And the impossible weight of it claws through his entire body, crushes as it settles heavy and awful on his ribs. 

And for several, terrifying beats, he can’t breathe.

But the sunlight is filtering through the decorative paper panels, glittering across the ornate lacquered lotus flowers on the bedposts of his marriage bed and the birds are singing outside and the palace women are speaking and his heart is beating and he is real and he is alive and it passes. 

Slowly, slowly, slowly, it passes.

And he’s alone still, naked still, but no longer raw or vulnerable or splintering from fear when the palace women slide the paper panels open, coax him to his feet. 

He tenses as he’s dressed, shuddering as the bright-eyed, pretty, pretty palace woman’s hand skates across his goosebumped skin, pats over the silk to rid it of wrinkles. Then, he flushes as another changes their bed clothes, sees the stained remains of their _compromise_ , his _conquest_. His hands tremble into fists, but he breathes and breathes and breathes, sets his chin as he guided to his breakfast table.

It’s dulled—incrementally—the decadence and excess of last night’s celebration. But their golden spoons are embellished with decorative jewels, their silver chopsticks glint in the early kiss of dawn, and their glazed greenware is smooth, precious, _beautiful_ to the touch. And yes, of course, they’d won. Yes, of course, he’d lost. Yes, of course, it's so painfully _obvious_.

Joonmyun’s fingertips itch to shatter, to tear, tremble as they skip restlessly over the dark, lacquered wooden table. 

And Joonmyun’s distinct sense of dread, it’s here, too, though also dulled. Incrementally, too. The helplessness. The resentment. The anger. The indignation. The fear. Dulled and very nearly bearable. 

His husband, the Crown Prince, sits across from him. Silent and foreboding, eyebrows stitched and lips pursed in quiet thought. He’s haloed by the sun. Hurts to look at still. Hurts to belong to still. Hurts even if there’s no changing it—still. 

And Joonmyun’s fine clothes itch against his skin. And the rice porridge, rich tea burns his throat. And a weight—leaden and painful—settles in his stomach. 

Heavier with every subsequent meal. The mixed rice he forces himself to finish at noon, the bubbling meat stew placed in front of him two hours later, the bowl of steaming dumplings he swallows at dinner.

Joonmyun's feels nearly full to bursting with it as he slides into his fine, regal bed, beneath his fine, regal sheets, next to his fine, regal husband. Feels the distinct protest of every limb, every fine, stretched seam. 

At his side, his husband lies completely still, a mountain of cold, cold silence. He doesn’t touch him. Doesn’t speak. Breathes soft and slow and steady as he turns away from him in the cold, empty, gnawing darkness. 

He's a doll, too, Joonmyun decides. A Doh plaything, too. Lifeless and stiff and helpless like him, too. But made of something more painful—sharp, sharp, unyielding, stinging—to the touch.

 

As a courtesy, or maybe as some cruel, twisted display of regal authority, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, their royal guard in tow, visit the village marketplace days later. Palanquined, painted, ornamented, untouchable. 

The Crown Prince keeps a guiding arm around Joonmyun's waist as they amble though the stalls, his hold possessive and protective and just as arresting as the court ladies' during their wedding, just as unshakable. 

The Crown Prince's smile is practiced, false, tight, Joonmyun’s feels tearing at the seams.

His stringed coins rattle in his silk pouch every time he bends forward to get a closer look at the spices, the hairpins, the sweets, rattle also every time that the Crown Prince tugs him forward. Impatient. Bored. 

Joonmyun is hardly given a chance to bask in the brief, brief taste of sweet, sweet freedom, hardly given a chance to explore the kingdom he is now to call his own. Rushed, he buys a hairpin for his sister, another for his mother, stumbles over the ends of his robes, scalds his tongue on sweet tea. But appreciates regardless. Makes the most of it, regardless. 

The head piece, he wears, it’s less ornate, less beautiful, less heavy, but Joonmyun’s neck still protests beneath the weight, and at night as the palace women unwind the beautiful knots in his hair, rub their fingers along his tingling scalp, Joonmyun shudders, aches. 

That night, alone in his room, he unstrings his coins, spreads them across the embroidered silk of his lap. They're the same material, weight as his own kingdom’s—old kingdom’s—but the engravings are different, worth more for it. And Joonmyun lets the pads of his fingers catch on the embossed marking as he counts and counts and counts. 

 

The next morning, as the sun sits noon-stark and noon-heavy in the sky, the Crown Prince, King, Queen, servants change into their ceremonial, stark, dark robes, lead him to their family altar to pay his respects. Joonmyun has to strain his neck to see the top of the building, small, small, small, a tiny, trembling shrimp, swallowed whole. As his country, his kingdom, his dynasty had been. And heart-shattering, limb-locking terror squeezes painfully around his lungs, and his incense holder shakes hard, hard, hard as he prays even harder, harder, harder.

 

Joonmyun, his family, his father, their kingdom, they had known already that they would lose. They had known already that someone more powerful would come, would conquer even if they didn’t have the decency to wave their war banners and call it _conquest_. They had _known_.

It had been merely a matter of time. 

Their court astronomers, perched on their stone towers, unblinking gazes glued to the infinite, crushing, crushing sky, they had foretold this, after all. The heavens and how their favor had turned, after all. Their kingdom and how it would fall, after all. 

Theirs had been a quiet dread of anticipation and fear, pretending and clinging until they couldn’t any longer, gorging themselves on what was left of their wealth and power and majesty for as long as they possibly could. A pretense, a desperate, desperate pretense, of control. 

There’s a different kind of pretense to this, to the Doh. A different kind of excess and desperation and half-truth in this. A different kind of clinging, too. In these lavish, decadent displays of wealth and power and majesty. 

Joonmyun's had been a falling kingdom, falling star, flickering out weakly in the cold, black, endless sky. And the Doh, a terrifying and beautiful rising guest star that swallowed them whole. A fire scattering across the silver ocean, brilliant and fearful enough to eclipse all else, to illuminate the night and dim the moon and steal even the quiet, receding pulses of a once great empire. A kingdom, a star-blessed kingdom powerful and horrifying enough to make heaven and earth quake, powerful and horrifying enough to make Joonmyun’s kingdom fall to their knees in ready surrender. Powerful and horrifying enough to steal him away, cage him in as the stars _demanded_. 

Joonmyun, the conquered, the claimed, their prize, he is surrounded by the splendor of the Doh’s tall, imposing, beautiful, awful, awful palace walls, caged by the ornate inscribed peonies, phoenixes, lotus flowers, scrolls, dragons, beasts on their green-glazed roof tiles. Confined by their ornate paper doors, their dizzyingly tall painted columns, Joonmyun feels small, tiny as an ant, a shrimp awash in an ocean of terror, yet told that he belongs, or at least that he isn’t allowed to leave. The stars, they’d foretold this. He was destined. But they were, too.

 

It’s the subtle differences, he finds, that make it hardest, the way the palace women's voices lilt just the slightest in greeting, the often nauseating lavishness of their court food, the just too little stickiness to their white rice, just too much bitterness to their tea, the way his hands always slide too shakily over the glassy surface of their incense burners, the acrid sweetness of their ancestral offerings. And it's the way his too-fine clothing shifts just too smoothly on his skin, the way their ornate utensils catch the sunlight, the way their fine and smooth paper—mulberry—feels beneath his palms, the way his bath water smells, the way the air tastes. It’s the subtleties that remind him, most painfully, of home. 

And Joonmyun, he misses his home.

And it hurts. And he hurts.

 

And it’s an awful, gnawing punishment. The unsettling unfamilarity of it, a persitent itch beneath his skin, persistent ache in his joints. The agonizing monotony of hours upon hours upon hours of nothingness. A relentless, endless, endless stretch of forever—like this.

And Joonmyun, he is meant to accept it. Meant to make a life here. Alternately, meant to cope. 

Joonmyun, he resolves to at the very least _try_.

 

He dirties his fine, foreign robes stumbling through the lush, sweet-smelling palace gardens near their detached palace, exploring the freedom—the small, small freedom—he is allowed. 

The coming spring, it's already claiming what it can of the fading winter, melting what it can of the lingering snow. 

The earlier, braver, bolder birds have started singing, and the earlier, braver, bolder flowers have started bursting through the pristine white blankets of snow, in vibrant explosions of red and blue and yellow and pink. And blighted as they are, they’re beautiful, those flowers. They’re strong. They're resilient. And the smell of chrysanthemums, azaleas, peonies, forsythias lingers on his clothing, his skin. The rebirth of them, the hope in them.

But it’s holding fast still, the winter, the dying old year, scrambling to cling and claim and conquer and consume what it still can. It’s utterly terrifying in its desperation, the jealous frost that clings to budding flowers, envious of their beauty, their life. 

Joonmyun scrapes the tips of his fingers raw and frozen and aching against that bitter, greedy, greedy rime. 

It hurts still at lunch, at tea, at dinner, his fingertips sore and chapped red around the handle of his spoon. But real. 

And Joonmyun repeats the process over and over and over again for the rest of the week. 

 

The week after, he thumbs through the books in his library. Then, unsatisfied, sneaks into the Crown Prince’s. His fingers skip over the spines of books. Medicine. Astronomy. Alchemy. Buddhist Sutras, treatises. Confucian Thought. Philosphy. Poetry. Painting. Music. History. Politics. Military strategy. 

Joonmyun hides them in the folds of his robes, returns them when he’s done.

 

But by the next week, he realizes that it isn’t completely necessary, his discretion, his apologetic apprehension. 

The palace, it’s for the most part completely indifferent to his presence. Though they’d stolen him away. Though they’d made grand claims as to _precisely_ why they needed only him for their kingdom. 

The palace, it for the most part behaves as if it never wanted him. As if it never flexed regal authority to steal him away. 

The Crown Prince, his husband, his _fated_ , especially. 

He is a stranger by the day, a bed partner by the night. But even the nights are infrequent, his touch an accident, an afterthought, the whisper of a clothed leg against his side, the ghost of a hand on his shoulder, the residual warmth of his body that's bled into their silken sheets. Only the bleary outline of his receding body in the kiss of dawn. Only the whisper of his breathing. Only the passing flicker of his gaze during their mealtimes, the two occasions they’ve passed each other in the winding, collosal halls.

The Crown Prince spends most of his hours away, in his private library, in his lecture hall, drinking tea with his father, with his advisors, with his tutors, with his Grand General, training with his soldiers. 

And it had been confusing, at first, the fleeting, fleeting encounters, accidental touches, words, gazes. But confusion, it has given way to indignation, to anger, to hurt, to potent, crushing, aching loneliness. Sudden, gnawing, rending, bone piercing, heartbreaking loneliness. 

Joonmyun needs and wants and yearns, thrums with his need, want, yearning. His skin aches with the desire for touch, for affection, bristles and burns whenever he’s indulged even just the slightest.

And the way that one of his bathing women brushes her soft nimble fingers against his tight, tense, trembling, bare, wet, flushed skin, it makes goosebumps bloom across his skin. As does the kiss of heady, sweet oil against the nape of his neck, the base of his skull, the quiver of his jaw. As does the searing heat of her soft, soft breathing. It makes helpless, aborted, shuddery sighs fall from his parted lips, too, has his eyelashes fluttering in the most indiscreet, most unapologetic display of desire. 

He wants, wants, wants. 

And oh, the royal tailor, too. Handsome, bright-eyed, a nameless, nameless servant, and oh, the subtle, terrified admiration and desire in his lingering gaze. Oh, the clumsy way his hands stumble assessingly around his shoulders, down his waist. Oh, the way it bristles, blisters, burns. Joonmyun jerks into it and then away, and his gaze—shy and blinking and so bright—it sears him even further with fragile, reckless, desperate want.

He wants, wants, wants. 

Thinks of them when he touches himself. The want he imagines returned. The affection. The comfort that would be their skin. 

And aches and aches and aches. 

 

Joonmyun, a disenfranchised, deposed, debilitated Crown Prince, once-loved, once-wanted, one-revered, he’s never been so terribly, achingly alone. Never borne anything like this before. Doesn’t know that he can—accept or survive or cope. 

The realization, the impossible weight of it crushes him, tears at him, and torn, ragged, he falls to his knees, clambers out in his panic, scraping his palms raw against bark has the air in his lungs gets tighter, tighter, tighter, the weight on his shoulders gets heavier, heavier, heavier. He presses his face there, too, scrapes his forehead there, too, inhaling deeply, desperately, clinging tight as his tremors wrack through his limbs. And he tries and he tries and he tries, and he breathes and he breathes and breathes. 

The ground is solid and warm and wet beneath his knees, and Joonmyun claws at the dirt to anchor himself then even higher, clinging tight, holding fast, blinking past the overwhelmed tears clinging to his eyelashes. 

The tree—plum—is twisted at the base, gnarled, rough to the touch, trapped here, too, hurting here, too, but it still stands tall and proud and looming and beautiful even in its awful captivity, in its awful neglect. Surviving in spite of it all. _Thriving_ in spite of it all. 

His, Joonmyun decides. It will be his. Something private. Something sacred. Something completely and wholly his own.

He can, too. Will, too. Wants, wants, wants.

 

And Joonmyun spends more endless, endless, awful days in the Doh Palace. 

And those days begin to lengthen and heat. And the lazier, shyer flowers are blooming, the lazier, shyer birds are singing, the sun shining brighter, palace glowing warmer. But it's too cold still, too hollow, too stifling. 

It’s a physical ache, his loneliness, his dread, his fear, his indignation, his hurt. A physical pang. A darkness clawing through his limbs, tearing at his lungs, clenching around his heart. And Joonmyun, chosen as he was, kept as he is, he isn't given the luxury of hurting in private. Not for too long. 

Because there's a method and ritual and procedure to this, too. 

And Joonmyun, he is meant to at least _look_ happy. Painted, too. Pretty, too. Worthy, too. Cowed, too. Kept, too. 

Especially in public, he knows, shuddering as the Palace Matron digs her thumbs into the quiver of neck, along the trembling slope of his shoulders. It's their first public banquet. A celebration of the coming spring. 

The women wind their fingers through his hair, coax his head back, throat exposed and prone and quivering with an aborted hiss, as they paint him pretty and worthy and cowed and kept. Paint him _right_.

 

The music is no less jarring, the spectacle, the decadence no less unsettling, the entire experience no less terrifying—the second time around.

There is more dancing. Then young boys in military red shooting their bows. Then roosters fighting. Then alcohol. Then more alcohol. Then even more. Burning at first but sickly sweet by the end. Warm and heady and comforting, a decent enough substitute, Joonmyun decides, for love, for want—at least for the moment. And he gorges himself and gorges himself and gorges himself. 

And foreign, fettered, Joonmyun picks at the chrysanthemum and azalea petals in his flower cakes, drinks and drinks and drinks to ease the distinct dread and despair clawing up his throat, drinks until he’s lost in the haze of sticky-sweet intoxication, until the lines and colors are blurred—enough, until Joonmyun starts to believe the lie that this kingdom is a comfortable enough home. And that this spring, this year will be one of bounty and hope for him, too.

And Joonmyun, as the sun licks sleepily across the horizon, is too warm, too weightless, too wild, too free, believing—finally believing—that he can be as the heavens desire. 

Rising, he feels too clumsy on his feet, laughs too loud, clings too tight to the mountain of his Crown Prince, laughs even louder as he sees the way that the material of his fine, regal dragon robe wrinkles beneath Joonmyun's clumsy, trembling fingers, the way his fine, regal, dragon’s face pinches with displeasure. 

Joonmyun is plaything, a doll, a gift that the spoiled Crown Prince, the Doh kingdom, doesn’t want after all, but Joonmyun is too warm, too weightless, too wild to care. And he lets his head collapse against the Crown Prince’s shoulder, lets his cheek graze against his throat, lets himself have this touch for just a moment then embraces the gnawing, aching void of a cold, empty bed when he’s dragged drunkenly to his chambers. 

In the morning, he shudders past a pounding headache, a knotted stomach, the too-bold tilt of a palace woman's eyebrow.

And Joonmyun, he continues to hurt. Continues to yearn. Fraying, fraying, fraying, seam by trembling seam. Cracking, cracking beneath the vast, vast awful, crushing, crushing weight of loneliness. Warped and twisted and ugly for it.

 

He steals more of the Crown Prince’s fine, bound books, carries them, bold, brash into the palace gardens. Heedless of even the faint grass and dirt stains he streaks against their fine, regal pages, fine, regal covers. Of the cracked spines, of the beads of dew that warp the beautiful scrawling words. Proud of them, even.

Joonmyun, like a child—an insolent child—he wants to be acknowledged, wants to be noticed. Even if it’s only to tell him that he’s not what they had anticipated, not what the stars had promised he would be. Even if it’s to tell him he’s something worth throwing away. 

Joonmyun arranges the folds in his robes reckless, too, smears them with dirt and mud, grass, crushed flower petals, as he leans back against the solidity of his tree and counts the wandering clouds, wishes he was also free, free, free. His entire body echoes with longing.

Bored after several beats, he bumbles to watch the captive koi fish, too, the captivating way they flit beneath the clear surface, majestic and glimmering and beautiful, punished for that alone. Trapped like him—for that alone.

Joonmyun falls to his knees, dirties his robes on the soft, wet earth there, scrapes his palms raw on the jagged edges of the carved stone bricks as he watches them round the edges the creek then back, again and again. Caged, helpless to do anything else. 

And it's crueler, more tragic to not at least admire them, he decides. All the crueler and more tragic to leave them useless and lonely in their captivity. He’ll spare them as he isn’t spared, appreciate them as he isn’t appreciated, love them as he isn't loved. Anymore.

And oh, they’re so beautiful. Their golden, black, orange spots, their glimmering iridescent scales, the whiskers near their mouths, the flicks of their beautiful, graceful tails as they glide around the creek then back again and again and again. Joonmyun, too, again and again again, lulled into a stupor, only rising when the palace women come searching for him. Lunch, it is soon. He accidentally tears a page in one of the books—in his scramble to follow.

 

Joonmyun tires of hitting the edges of his own cage again and again and again, tires of pretending this is freedom enough. And Joonmyun, he resolves to cope as he did when he was a child, an insolent, insubordinate, impossible child. In need of even the fleeting taste of freedom, even the ephemeral pretense of liberty.

Discreet, but unapologetic, he peels his fine, foreign robes off layer by reckless layer, feels deliriously lighter for it, weightless, naked, free. He wraps himself instead in the worn, pale ramie cloth he’d bribed his last royal tailor into making for him. They're coarse and nondescript, these robes. They paint him tiny, insignificant, helpless in the most liberating, most wonderful way.

And climbing into an oxcart in the early dawn, he sneaks out into the market place. 

And the chaos, the cacophony of discordant sights, smells, sounds, tastes makes his head spin, makes him stumble, his metal coins rattling with it. Joonmyun counts them as he wanders aimless, heedless, reckless, nameless, classless, crownless, faceless, faceless, faceless through the stalls, past piles of pine-needled rice cakes, steaming dumplings, dried meats, overflowing jars of spices. There are ornate pins, too, beads, necklaces, bracelets, instruments, toys, pots, carpets, things he’d missed on his last trip. And Joonmyun, he’s allowed to linger as long as he wants, free without the guidance of his husband’s hand around his elbow, his hissed instructions in his ear. 

And Joonmyun, he’s free, at least for the moment, but somehow still hurting, hurting, hurting. 

When he brushes against a villager by accident, the material of their robes is rough to the touch, coarse against his skin. But it helps, in a way, the brief jostling, it quells the ache, the deep, deep, dark, dark fathoms of loneliness and touch hunger. But only for that moment. 

And when he sneaks back, folds himself small, small, small into his bed, knees to his chest, eyes clenched tight, he feels the palace walls closing tighter, tighter, tighter around him—as expected, but he can bear it better. 

And he hadn’t been missed. And he doesn’t know whether to count it a blessing or a curse.

 

And the days pass and pass and pass. 

And Joonmyun sits still, steady, as instructed, as the Palace Matron prepares him for yet another festival. Lanterns, she informs him, as she whispers her brush along his cheekbones. 

It’s different, the third time. 

The music, it’s loud still, terrifying for it still. But less bombast, less pride, less pretension, less terror. Elation. Celebration. Salvation. 

And there is rich food, too. Ringing laughter, too. Flowers petals he is _meant_ to crush, too. 

Joonmyun gets ink on his wrists, on his cheek, on his robes as he paints his own paper lantern, but his laughter it’s ringing, too, real, too, his heart light, smile bright. And he honestly, for a moment, for several, beautiful moments, he forgets. 

Their lanterns are hung on high wires in the village square, fishes, turtles, flowers, frogs, all swaying in the gentle breeze. The lights glitter—like stars—when he squints just so, unfocused and hazy, but warm and beautiful and bright. Expecting nothing of him. 

The Crown Prince, in his periphery, he’s grinning, too. The King, too. The Queen, too. The palace maidens and nobles and commoners, too. 

And Joonmyun, he’s a part of this celebration. A part of this shared wonder. And he doesn't mind in that moment that he is a Doh, too. Doesn't prickle against the subjection of that title in that moment. 

But as the lanterns sway in the breeze, catch the glittering sunlight just so, he thinks, unbidden, of his brother’s perpetually clumsy paper contraptions—offensively crooked, offensively messy, thinks of the way his little sister always stood on her tiptoes to tug his ear over the blasphemous offense. 

And it hurts. 

And the hurt, it’s familiar by now. An old friend. His oldest. 

Hurting, hurting, hurting, Joonmyun steals rice cakes, dumplings, tangerines, tucks them in the folds of his robes, squeezes them tight and broken and messy in his fists as he watches and hurts and hurts and hurts.

 

The loneliness, it only continues to grow and grow and grow and gnaw and gnaw and gnaw until Joonmyun is shrunken, hollowed out, hopeless. A shell. A husk. Not even pretty, he thinks. Not even wanted. And certainly not loved.

And lonely and alone as always, bored as always, unwanted and unloved and useless with it as always, Joonmyun sequesters himself in his oft-empty room and touches himself to pass the time, to ease the ache. 

Tossing his head back into the sheets, Joonmyun recalls the phantom drag of his servant girl’s fingers across his skin, the way the royal guard’s eyes had flicked to his hips at noon last week, the ink-stained curl of a young advisor’s wrist during the lantern painting, how the tailor's hands had adjusted on his waist. And closing his eyes, he focuses on the warmth of his own touch, the slickness, the tightness, bites his lip, strokes himself faster, faster, faster, tighter, tighter, tighter, moans breathier, breathier, breathier until it is too, too much. 

He spreads his release on the rumpled, silken sheets between his legs as a habit, as another half-lie, but his husband doesn't come to their chambers that night until he’s fallen asleep. Leaves again before Joonmyun awakens. 

And the stains bleed instead onto his clothing, his skin. And the pressure builds, builds, builds, crushing, crushing, crushing him smaller, smaller, smaller. Warping him knotted, uglier, uglier, uglier as he scrapes against the edges of his gilded cage, scrapes himself raw and jagged against every encrusted jewel. 

A fragile, ugly doll tearing at the seams, a desert starved.

And the darkness grows and grows and grows, ravenous and cold and terrifying, it swallows Joonmyun whole, the sun, the moon, every flickering meddling star. And it rages and rages and rages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry for being very bad at estimating how long it would take me to fix parts of this. the new update schedule is, i dont fucking know ://///
> 
> but look at this beautfiul joseon era [sudi fanart](https://twitter.com/MinFu_exo/status/967300858168803328?s=19). hurts good, right?
> 
> and once more, i’m on [cc](http://curiouscat.me/oneforyourfire) or [twitter](http://twitter.com/oneforyourfire) if you've got any questions or concern


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings for this chapter: ~bisexuality, more drinking, more angst, more touch hunger, messier royal tantrums, use of royal harems

The next time he’s pulled into his chambers, painted and powdered and polished and primped to pliant, regal perfection, it isn’t for a festival. Isn’t for a banquet. Not a public one, at least. 

And they had explained this to him before, the Palace Matron reminds him, as she knots his robes. The Doh Kingdom is _terribly_ cosmopolitan, _terribly_ powerful, so very diplomatically relevant. And there is no shortage of foreign powers eager to meet and court and impress them. 

And though they had explained it to him, they remind him once more, nonetheless. Of how important it is to be well-behaved. Of the process, method, ritual, in showcasing their regal authority. 

And oh yes, he remembers. He was trained. He has practiced. He has learned. He knows. 

And they'll at least break up the routine, Joonmyun decides, at least provide some relief from the awful, awful monotony, even if it’s only to remind him of his duty, of his station, of his utter impotence. And even if it's only for a moment. 

Urging his back straighter, his more shoulders squared, the dressing women bind the silk tighter, tighter, tighter, so tight he can barely breathe.

 

These ambassadors come from the Yangtze River. Come to court. Come to impress. Come laden with porcelain bowls, gilded jewelry, medicinal tea, kind words, kinder regards from the emperor. Congratulations on the Crown Prince's beautiful wedding, beautiful bride.

And the Doh do some courting, some impressing of their own.

Adorned in their most decadent, most pretentiously beautiful regal reds, blues, golds, they host them at the banquet hall, where the palace women have dusted and unfurled their finest carpets, shined their finest metalware, varnished their finest tables. 

And the Doh, they open with lavish, vibrant dances, ringing songs so powerful and poignant, they make alarmed, alarming tears prickle in Joonmyun's eyes. 

And the Doh, they offer finer, more ornate glazed glassware, gold-plated silver cups, jewel-encrusted spoons. 

They present their best, Joonmyun among them. 

The envoys, they’ve come in their best, too. Imperial purple and black, embroidered silk hats, gold and glass and silver jewelry that glitters prettily in the candlelight. And their words, accented, measured, slow, they seem to glitter, too, seem to sparkle, seem to shine, seem to dazzle. 

Joonmyun, he’s dazzled. 

And oh, he’s honestly the most beautiful man that Joonmyun has ever seen—their leader—bowing deeply before being seated in one of the Doh’s high, varnished chairs. He's lean and broad and beneath his robes, strong, graceful. And oh, his face. Thick eyelashes, round eyes, the most delicate pucker of a pink mouth. 

And oh, his companions, too. 

One, taller, sun-kissed, a harsh, enchanting cut to his dark feline eyes. His heavy eyelashes flutter prettily in a soft smile as he watches Joonmyun over the pale green of his tea cup. Joonmyun, entranced, follows the curve of his arm, the twist of his golden wrist as his long, elegant fingers trace along the silk tablecloth.

And the last, tall, too, porcelain-pale, smiling serenely, the prettiest twist to his full lips, a sleepy contentment in his dark eyes. 

And oh, Joonmyun has three beautiful, forbidden, forbidden, _forbidden_ men to break up the routine. To remind him of his station, of his duty, of his captivity. Of his gnawing, gnawing, gnawing longing. 

And oh, the aching, aching loneliness, his aching, aching loneliness, it makes this entire encounter heavier, headier, more desperate than it should be. Makes him more desperate than he should be. 

Joonmyun flutters his eyelashes, parts his lips, tilts his head back, long and lean. He bears the strain of gold and silk and glass on his shoulders, his throat, an offering he has no right to make. Feeling forbidden, forbidden, _forbidden_ eyes on his exposed skin, he covers his smile with a sip from his glazed cup, and he wants and wants and wants. Wants to be wanted.

He's perilously, impudently dizzy on the way golden fingers tremble around painted glass. The way that oversized dark, lush-lashed eyes linger on his face. The way plush lips curl lazy and slow, dimpling marble, unmarred skin.

And he wants and wants and wants so badly to be wanted. 

Joonmyun, for fear of wanting, too much, too obvious, too reckless he finally looks away. Restless, his fingers trace—stroke by stroke—what characters he thinks they might use for their names. 

Yellow. Open. Suffering, suffering, suffering. 

Then the words he catches, recognizes, though his kingdom was not nearly as cosmopolitan, not nearly as powerful, not nearly as diplomatically relevant. 

Bridge, ocean, soldier, sun, beautiful, gifts, emperor, gratitude, flowers, sky.

 

The envoys stay in the guest quarters in a detached palace, near Joonmyun's favorite gardens, near his tree. And Joonmyun shudders whenever the unnervingly beautiful one brushes his fingers absently against the bark of his tree, whenever the light dances across his face just so.

And he wants him. Oh, how he wants him.

 

Joonmyun, Crown Princess that he is, Doh host that he is, entertains them privately in his tea rooms, as he had practiced, as he had learned. And they have even more gifts to share, teas, confectionaries—sesame candy, syrup-coated berries, honeyed pastries. They have more words, too. More observations. More questions. More jokes. Their official translator translates, but the pretty leader does, too, smiling conspiratorially at Joonmyun after every sentence, his round, captivating, beautiful, forbidden eyes twinkling with the force of his smile. And enraptured and trembling with want, Joonmyun watches the way his lips purse and then relax with every achingly sweet syllable. 

And it's disarming and so very damning. 

He is shaking with desire when he returns to his bed that night, cold and aching with it.

His fingers are still residually sticky with honey. His robes, too. Reminders of a private enough moment, something precious and wholly his own. 

Joonmyun, Crown Princess that he is, Doh host that he is, neglected bride that he is, he has more than enough time to touch himself slow and lazy, come slow and lazy, languish in the sticky-sweet afterglow, then bathe then change then doze before his heaven-appointed, heaven-mandated husband returns.

 

They meet in passing at the imperial gardens the next morning, greet each other in polite, quiet formality. 

Impressing, still. Impressed, still. And wanting and wanting and wanting. 

A gentle breeze, cherry blossom-stained and cherry blossom-sweet, flutters through the pavilion and the birds chirp and the sunshine caresses and a tendril of black hair slides across his beautiful, marble forehead into his large, lush-lashed, round, round doll eyes. And Joonmyun has to curl his hands into fists to keep from doing something too, too foolish, too, too reckless. Keep himself from thinking that maybe he could be wanted. Maybe finally he could be loved, too.

Because oh, Joonmyun wants him _his_ , knows that this beautiful man wants him, too. 

Suffering, he remembers. His name is suffering, and this is the raw, festering wound of it.

But maybe, maybe, maybe this is what the stars had meant. 

Maybe he was allowed to have something realer and softer and prettier and all his own, too. 

Maybe this was his reprieve.

Maybe please please _please_.

And that same breeze swells and swells and swells, and a stray leaf tangles in Joonmyun's knotted hair, and oh, he reaches forward to brush it away, fingers so excruciatingly soft on his skin. So awfully, awfully bold. So wonderfully, wonderfully bold. And reckless and reckless and reckless. 

Suffering, suffering, suffering.

His body burns at the touch even after a warning cough has the envoy pulling suddenly away. 

Joonmyun's heart beats in a restless tattoo, and his skin is so tight, so fragile, he is nearly shattering with desire. 

His cheeks feel warm at lunch, at dinner, fingers restless on his stomach, his chest, his thighs, reckless with desire.

 

Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

Suffering, suffering, suffering.

 

Nothing comes of it. 

Nothing ever really could. 

There can be no such relief. 

There can be no such hope for it. 

And Joonmyun rubs his palms raw against the bark of his tree as he watches their decorated horses, decorated men glitter and sparkle and shine and dazzle and _sting_ as they leave. 

And the gnawing need only grows and grows and grows, a dull, lingering ache. 

And Joonmyun bears it as he’s practiced. He's been taught. He's learned.

 

And the days turn into nights, the nights into days. Hotter, longer, wetter. A blessing. A curse. The heavens are dark and angry and violent, dark clouds blotting out the sun and its warmth, and it rains and rains and rains. 

And Joonmyun’s world shrinks to the shaking columns of his tiny, awful palace, his tiny, awful, cold, cold, empty room. 

A punishment, he thinks, a heavenly punishment for his reckless, improper want. The breathless exhilarating and terrifyingly perilous moment when he'd almost almost almost taken.

 

The thunder rattles through the walls of their chambers, their bedposts, through his bones, dark and angry and violent and unsettling and terrifying as it does night after night after night. 

And Joonmyun breathes consciously through every distinct rumbling roar, through all the sudden, sharp slashes of silver in the night sky, through the pounding, rattling insistence of the pouring rain. 

Curling himself small, small, small, he fears the rain, its isolation, its fury, its power, like he never has before. Not since he was a child. 

He tugs their blankets tighter around his body, trembles until he sleeps. 

Naked and helpless and alone even draped in silk, even caged in his palace, even with the mountain of his silent, sharp husband at his side.

 

And the days bleed, and he does, too.

 

And it's his birthday and he's to be acknowledged, celebrated, entrapped by that acknowledgment and celebration. 

And there will be another banquet, a public one, to break up the routine, to provide some reprieve from the monotony, to remind him of his duty, of his station, of his utter impotence, of his gnawing, awful yearning. 

The Palace Matron drapes him in heavier, brighter, more beautiful gold. Paints his face as she had on his wedding day. Reddened lips, darkened eyebrows, rouged cheeks. A plastered prettiness. A plastered happiness, too. A Crown Princess to be celebrated. A Crown Princess to be wanted. A Crown Princess to be loved. The one that stars had chosen just for them. 

Adrift, burdened with another lie, another act, playing at happiness, at gratitude, at regality he’s lost and gained, Joonmyun squirms beneath the cage of his duty. And his hands tremble inside his fine silk robe, around his fine wine glass. And he’s quivering with the force of his discomfort, his yearning. It crushes his ribs tight, this mask, this pretense, churns through his stomach, burns through his veins. 

His skin is achingly tight, bristling with the acute prickle of court regard and regal performance. And it’s so, so, so difficult to breathe. 

The Crown Prince, at his side, eyes unfocused, jaw set, looks _bored_ —with the ornate displays of lavish food, with the colorful troupes of palace musicians, palace dancers, with the spectacle they’d unchained Joonmyun to see. 

And the Crown Prince, his unrefined, untamed tiger, dragon, mountain, soldier, he rises suddenly. And fierce and cruel and imperious and proud, he makes a mockery of those that would feel such yearning. Brandishing with his cup, curling his lips in a fake, broad, cruel, cruel smile, he thanks the heavens for his beautiful bride. A blessing from the stars. For his kingdom. His true love. 

Tipping his head back, taking a long, luxurious drag from his ornate glazed cup, then laughing, he makes a burden of Joonmyun’s want, of Joonmyun's hurt. 

And Joonmyun resents him, them, _this_ , _hates_ as he never has before. He mashes red bean pastries between his clenched fists, smears them on his robes as he swallows consciously past the sharp, jagged lump of hatred and disdain in his throat. His limbs shake with anger, dark and deep and sudden and despairing. And raising his cup for refill after refill after refill, he drinks and drinks and drinks and drinks to chase that dark, deep, sudden, despairing anger away.

It’s a celebration. It’s his own. He’s meant to be happy. He _wants_ to be happy. Wants to be loved. Wants to be wanted. Wants to be treasured. Wants—

But no, the resentment, the heartrending hatred, they only grow and grow and grow, fill him to the brim and tear him open. 

And at _his_ banquet, with all the people celebrating him, his birth, promising they are grateful for him, want him, love him, need him, Joonmyun feels most achingly unwanted, unloved, unneeded, broken. Joonmyun, he doesn’t feel pretty or painted, doesn’t feel like a plaything worth keeping, feels scarred and twisted and jagged from longing. Tearing at the seams and wrong and lonely and reckless and ashamed and awful.

And it’s a typhoon at this point, the storm within him, swelling, swelling, swelling, spilling across the coast, tearing trees from their roots, dashing bodies against the jagged, water-scarred rocks. Killing, killing, killing, utterly ruining as he has been ruined.

 

He calls for the Royal Consort when he retires to his chambers that night, drags her into his marriage bed, tangles his fingers through her long, knotted hair as he clings tight, kisses fierce, touches and touches and touches to soothe the bone-deep ache reverberating through his entire body. 

Splaying her open across the fine, regal sheets, Joonmyun pushes apart the fine, foreign material of her skirts, finds where she’s warm and soft and so, so, so responsive. He rests his head there, trembles when she brushes his hair back. Intoxicated and awed and terrified, he watches the way his hot tears slide down her skin.

And he can’t. He _can’t_. 

She urges him higher, and Joonmyun presses his face between her breasts, tastes the restless flutter of her heartbeat as she holds him steady, holds him safe, holds him together. 

Lips against his temple, she holds him until he stops trembling with rage and longing. She holds him through the night. 

She’d been selected by the stars just like him, been doomed by them, too, just like him. And she's meant to be theirs, he knows. Meant to be shared between them, meant to bear them a child. 

But he’s selfish and he’s wrong and he’s lonely and he’s reckless and ashamed and awful and he wants her—wants someone completely his own—even if just for a moment, even if just like this.

 

She's gone in the morning, and his husband's eyes prickle on his skin at breakfast, lunch, dinner.

 

He will never be enough, he knows. They will never love him, he knows. They will never want him, he knows. They will only keep him and paint and powder and polish and present him when it suits them. 

And it’s a quiet, quivering rage splintering and sharp, a storm still, tearing through him still. But there’s a relief in it almost, the realization. The futility of it all. 

And digging his fingernails into the mottled wood of his tree, watching the receding shadow of his husband, who cannot, will not love him, want him, need him, Joonmyun resolves then to be something unloved, unwanted, unneeded. Resolves to tear apart what regard, what respect he has left and cut himself sharp and ragged and raw and warped on every splintered, jagged piece.

 

Childish, childish, childish, liberatingly so, Joonmyun resolves to act out, to ignore his duty, his station, the training they had stamped into his skin.

The palace walls have eyes, and his every action reflects on the Crown Prince, the King, the Doh. And he's spent weeks being trained in how to be the best Crown Princess, how deep to bow, how wide to smile, how slow to walk, how to eat and drink and sit and breathe. How to be the kind of Prince, the kind of doll that doesn't get tossed away. But Joonmyun, he wants to be tossed away. Joonmyun, he will be tossed away. 

At their next banquet, he relishes in the reckless chaotic provocation of it. The fearless, careless twisted destruction of it. Lacking grace and tact and shame and meaning and hope, he upends a bottle on the table with a wandering elbow, throws his head back with the ringing raucousness of his own drunken laughter, wrinkles his own carefully tied robes, tousles his own carefully tied hair, sits in shameless, shameful disarray.

Joonmyun likes the heated whisper of disapproval at his sides, the way that the Crown Prince's voice drops into the roughest, most scolding hiss. Likes being ostensibly incorrigible, errant and uncouth and unloveable and unloved and unwantable and unwanted. Likes being a doll worth depreciating, worth throwing away. A heaven-approved, heaven-mandated gift worth questioning. 

And as he's dragged back to his quarters, balanced on the Crown Prince’s side, with the fine, regal silk of his robes clenched in his tingly fingertips, Joonmyun notes how slight he really is, his husband, his Crown Prince, his mountain, his tiger, his dragon, his soldier. Notes how he staggers just the slightest when Joonmyun lurches, his shoulder shivering with the exertion. Staggers, also through the threshold of their chambers before dropping him unceremoniously on the bed. Gruff, brutish, like a broken toy. Wooden and splintering and ugly, too. 

Joonmyun decides he likes that best. 

Angered, the Crown Prince waves the palace women away, and Joonmyun strips out of his clothes, his foreign, fine, fine robes, tugging hard enough to tear the seams, proud of his destruction of that, too. He nearly stumbles again, and the Crown Prince’s fingers steady him. And oh, Joonmyun resents them, then, how strong they feel, how steadying and grounding, how everything about the Crown Prince is hard and unyielding and sturdy and sharp and awful and impenetrable and fine and powerful and painful, how he can’t ever hope to win. How he was never even meant to. He resents, too, how handsome he is, the way his lips look so plush, and eyelashes so lush and jawline so strong and eyes so liquid, how he was supposed to be his, even though Joonmyun had never asked, never asked for their stars, never asked for their luxury, never asked, never wanted, isn’t asking, doesn’t want. 

“Don’t touch me,” he hisses. “Never—never touch me. _Never_."

The Crown Prince jerks back, alarmed, but silent. And he allows Joonmyun to tear, to shatter, to rend—at their bed covers, too, the embroidery, the beads, the silk. Allows him to stumble, to collapse, to cry, too. To curl into a small, small, shuddering little ball on the edge of this bed he's forced to share. 

And he doesn’t touch him, doesn’t reach forward even once. And Joonmyun is grateful even as he trembles, tries, tries, tries to keep from shattering into a million tiny, torn pieces.

 

The bed covers, embroidery, beads, silk have been replaced, righted by noon the next day. And Joonmyun, ashamed, apologetic, so, so small, hates himself for his misplaced aggression, but wants still, needs—still.

 

Bolder, more reckless, more needy, he eats by the river with the other commoners the next afternoon, leans forward to watch the large, beautiful —free, free, _free_ —fish flitting beneath the water. He sees his reflection, too. And oh, he's pretty still—too obviously regal still— even when no longer painted or powdered or polished, even though he's been rejected and broken, found unwanted and unloved and wrong. And he hates it. Hates them. Hates himself—most of all. 

Joonmyun waves his fingers through the river water to dispel his reflection, then twists his fingers in the grass by his side and tugs and tugs and tugs.

 

He hears talk in the village, hushed and scandalized. Talk in the palace, too. But he faces no overt consequences. And the burning, prickling disapproval, silent and subtle as it may be, it's a type of warmth, a type of balm from the bone-deep icy ache of lonely longing in his body.

But that next week, at lunch, the servant girl, new and young and pretty with her heavy eyelashes and plush lips, sets the food down in his periphery, too sudden, too loud, and Joonmyun jerks, nearly knocks it over. Across the table from him, the Crown Prince's lips twist with cruel amusement at his expense as the servant girl—terrified, drops immediately to her knees, apologizing profusely, her voice lilting wrong, accent wrong, clothing wrong, reaction wrong, even the way she leaves—wrong. 

Shaken, embarrassed, Joonmyun picks at the upset black beans. And the Crown Prince raises his eyebrow mockingly. 

And it’s the most genuine interaction they’ve had in months. The most that the Crown Prince has ever acknowledged him at all, save for that first night. And Joonmyun wants to spoil it, spoil it further, tear it open to get at the disgust—the revulsion, the passion just beneath. 

He taps his chopsticks too loud against the fine glassware and watches him startle, too, jerk, too, frighten an innocent serving girl, too, accept her apology, too. 

And Joonmyun, pleased, smiles at his expense, too. 

They eat their meal in silence, Joonmyun's own breathing, his own heartbeat echoing recklessly loud and desperate and jarring in his own ears. As is to be expected. 

He has practiced. He has learned.

 

The days continue to lengthen, warm, and the heat settles thick and oppressive on his skin, heavier and stickier and more unbearable with each passing day, and Joonmyun is listless and miserable with it. 

And he misses the stickiness of watermelon on his fingers, the kiss of sea salt on his skin, the echo of ecstatic cries atop fishing boats as they beg the sea gods to keep blessing them with overflowing bounties, protecting those that they’ve lost at sea. He misses home. Hates this palace he's meant to call his home now. Their customs, their rituals, their walls, their expectations, their Prince, their banquets, their banquets, their banquets. 

The Day of the God comes days later. 

And Joonmyun, tugging restlessly at gnarled iris roots near his thighs, at the stiff folds of his blue robes, gets drunk on iris liquor, watches the men in their military robes fight. 

The Regiment Commander, tall and lean and handsome, undefeated champion that he is, tosses soldier after soldier, man after man into the soft dirt beneath him, bows theatrically to the crowd after every victory, and the Crown Prince’s lip curls with a barely suppressed smile. 

They have a stone battle, too, stand on opposite sides of the field and toss until they’re disheveled and bruised and breathless, until the people are breathless, too, from their cheering. 

And it's brutal and terrifying, and Joonmyun is terrified. And this is why his kingdom hadn’t won. 

Joonmyun, when no longer distracted, no longer unnerved, makes a point of letting his limbs fall open, casting a too wide berth with every toast he’s forced to offer. He lets his intricate hairstyle fall loose, too, his headpiece crash against his throne just for the sake of petulantly letting his displeasure be known. 

And he picks apart the rice cakes, leaves crumbs and crushed herbs on the table now, wants, wants, wants them to not want him, wants, wants, wants to earn their hatred. 

Joonmyun, he will be thrown away.

 

Emboldened, he only continues in his recklessness. Not just at banquets, not just with honored guests. But at dinner, too. In the palace gardens, too. 

With the royal tailor, too. 

He parts his legs scandalously open, bites his lips and makes eyes, loves the stumbling sting of the tailor's trembling fingers, the prickle of his clumsy needles on his skin, loves the way his throat bobs, loves even just the impudent hint of it. 

And even in the markets, even when anonymous, even when free. He’s reckless. Careless. Caught often. 

Joonmyun can barely makes out the royal palace guard's face beneath his armor, but he can see the twist of his grimace, the disapproving, overbold tilt of his eyebrows. And that’s empowering in a way, too. That disapproval, disregard, too. It justifies the disgust—inverted, internal—he feels, too.

 

The Crown Prince joins him at their monthly rites several days later, his strong fingers curled around his elbow. In warning. In reminder. 

But oh, Joonmyun remembers himself as he blinks past the stinging acridness of the burning incense. 

Joonmyun, repentant, ashamed, he bows his head at the altars, fingers trembling around his incense holder. Surrounded by the ornate, painted tiles, by the rich, embroidered drapery, by the black, black scrawling characters and vibrant portraits, by fire and smoke, he’s reminded of his promises, of his duty. 

Though it was never his choice. Though he was never even given the pretense of a proper choice. 

He’s reminded of the stars, of the heavens. Of his own ancestors. His own crumpled kingdom. 

And he’s burning with indignation, with fear, quivering with rage, too. But _oh_ , the shame. Oh, the awful, crushing shame. 

The incense is acrid, stinging in his eyes, and his knees ache, but Joonmyun bows and bows and bows. Forehead pressed to the cold stone ground, he asks for forgiveness, asks again for some manner of reprieve, for guidance. 

He’s theirs now. 

Their kingdom’s. Their Crown Prince’s. 

He just needs to not feel so helpless and alone. 

He just needs to not be the ugly doll that they’ve tossed away. Not if it isn’t by virtue of his bad behavior. Not if he wasn’t given at least this choice. 

He’ll be worth wanting. He’ll be worth loving. He’ll be worth needing. He’ll be worth keeping. 

But they have to want him. They have to love him. They have to keep him. 

Please. Please. Please. 

They must know how hard he's tried, how long he's tried, must know how he’s scarred from it.

Please. Please. Please. 

The Crown Prince holds him again as they return.

And it burns like a brand, but he follows as he's led. Consciously doesn’t stiffen, doesn’t protest.

 

Joonmyun, he drinks to excess at the next festival still, chases the sweet, sweet abandon of that temporary indulgence, the warmth of it, the relief of it, the balm of it. 

But he sits still, and he plasters on a wide, convincing enough smile. And when he swallows too fast, chokes on red pepper flakes, eyes tearing as he coughs, swallows mouthfuls of water, pounds his own chest, he is as subtle and poised and well-behaved as they demand he be. As custom, propriety dictate he be.

When he stumbles, nobody is there to watch him fall. Nobody is there to catch him either. 

And it hurts. And he hurts. 

But he’s trying his best. 

And he can suffer in silence. He has practiced. He has learned.

 

He is coping. He is at the very least surviving. 

And the heat grows and grows and grows and chokes and chokes and chokes, an unbearable sticky, sticky swelter. 

He adapts to their remedies. Eats chicken and ginseng, swallows red porridge, drinks tea until he feels he’ll sink into the ground from the weight of it swishing in his belly. He presses cool bamboo to his forehead, tugs his robes as open as propriety will allow. Doesn’t protest even when the sickly sweet smell of the melting incense in his norigae makes his stomach twist

They hang vials near their beds, too, sweet-smelling oils to keep the mosquitoes away, but at night, Joonmyun still whacks lazily at the mosquitos buzzing around him, laughs in spite of himself at the Crown Prince’s long-suffering groan, the way that he suddenly jolts upwards, punches violently in the air, tearing their bed covers, their sheets, cursing soundly all the while. 

It’s the most emotional that Joonmyun has ever seen him, and he laughs harder, even more delirious. 

The Crown Prince, collapsing back, he laughs, too, deep and rumbling. Sighs again, shifts restlessly, laughs again and more loudly and with more delirious feeling when the mosquito buzzes by just once more. 

The Crown Prince tugs the blanket over their bodies, presses closes, and Joonmyun, laughter dying in his throat, waits tense tense tense until the Crown Prince’s body goes lax, breath deep with sleep.

 

Joonmyun seeks out the Royal Consort, too. Royal Consort, more. 

Captivated with the way her hair cascades down her back when he pulls her pins free, with the long, pale, elegant curve of her neck, the lithe beauty of her wrists, the dark luster of her wide, black eyes, the gorgeous pucker of her ruddy, plush lips, the unsettling, disarming kindness of her touches, of her words. Captivated with the fact that there's no question of her want, no gnawing coldness to her skin. 

But there’s no pretense then, no shame, in their subsequent meetings. No sex either. Joonmyun, he summons her into his room, into his bed, allows himself to be held. And the Royal Consort—Joohyun—she holds. She speaks. Of her family, her brother, her uncle one of the King’s most trusted advisors, how she misses them but of the great honor that this was, heaven-approved, heaven-mandated for her, too. 

She smells of peach blossoms, sweet and warm and soft and lingering, and it's Joonmyun's only comfort, the perfect place to drown. 

And he does night after night after night, seeking the heat of her body even when his own skin can hardly bear it. 

"My son could be king,” she tells him one night, fingers skipping bold, bold, burning, burning, beautiful down his throat, over his sternum. And her hands are small and soft and thin-boned and finely-wrought, made to worshipped and held and kissed. And he's helpless to resist, shudders into the caress as her fingers travel over his waist, trace along the quivering jut of his hip bone. “ _Your_ son," she continues. "The Crown Prince’s. Our son. If you’d only…"

But he doesn’t. But he _can’t_. 

And he catches her teasing smirk with his mouth instead. 

“You're his plaything, too?” he says, and she laughs. “Pretty, painted, a prisoner.” 

“Yours, too," she murmurs against the seam of his mouth. “I’m yours, too.” 

“And how would you like to be played with?”

And he kisses her, is kissed back, clings, is clung, too. Sears his way across her throat, the swell of her sternum, the race of her pulse. He likes the way that Joohyun’s moans taste in his mouth, the way her gentle, gentle tremors feel echoing through his own body. 

And indulged, he aches still for more. Greedy, greedy, greedy as the desert, as the ocean, as the cruel, biting winter months. Not just skin. Not just warmth. But reverence. But want. But love. 

It's a damning, despairing desire. 

“The Crown Prince,” she tells him much, much later. Disheveled and glassy-eyed and flushed and beautiful and rough-voiced. “He has never called for me. Never played with me. Never called for any consort.”

And of course, the Crown Prince really is made of stone, of earth, really is a mountain, a beast, and Joonmyun wonders hysterically if he’s ever felt splintered from yearning. If he's even capable. And if Joonmyun will ever be.

 

“How do you bear it? The hours, the loneliness, the coldness, the hunger. My skin, it always—” He sighs, turns on his elbow to watch her, the way the fading sunlight dances over the contours of her beautiful, fine bones. "How do you?”

She smiles, and it’s mesmerizing and so beautiful that it hurts. So tender, it makes affection bubble in his chest. He reaches forward to cup it with his palm, cradle that warmth. She shudders into the caress, drops aimless, sweet, little kisses to his palm, then his wrist. And Joonmyun is mesmerized by the startling beauty of her impossibly red, impossibly soft mouth. Tracing, tracing, tracing, wanting, wanting, wanting, having, having, having. 

“I don’t lack for physical affection, My Princess. I don’t lack for company.” 

“And when I’m gone?” 

"I don’t—the other palace women. It doesn’t count so long as it isn’t another man. Another man besides the Crown Prince and Crown Princess.” 

Joonmyun continues tracing over her throat, her sternum. And that fine, beautiful, beautiful tremor comes just slightly harder. 

“Do you love any of them?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I wonder sometimes, I think whether love can exist here. I think the palace walls would choke it. I think that’s why the Crown Prince is as he is. Nothing lasting, nothing beautiful blooms here.”

Silent, Joohyun reaches out and squeezes his wrist—hard.

 

It is confirmed for him when he wanders the palace gardens—alone, in the early, early kiss of dawn—sees palace women, the pruning shears they take to his beautiful plum tree. 

And yes, nothing is allowed to be wild here, allowed to be free here, allowed to be ugly, allowed to hurt, allowed to bleed, allowed to need. Especially not him. 

And Joonmyun, he isn’t naive enough to think his family hadn’t done the same, that his ancestors, his kingdom—hadn’t. 

But it burns through him still the indignation, the anger, the fear, the hurt, the yearning, the ugly, awful twisted hope. 

And he still hates them. The stars. The Doh. Hates the favor they have, the favor they took, and he tangled between, utterly hopeless, utterly powerless, utterly broken.

But Joohyun, she lessens the crushing, awful ache. Watches the clouds with him. Speaks to him of the books she’s read. Of the food she eats. Of the other palace women, too. Of the centipede that had made three concubines faint in fear. The new oils that had caused an outbreak of rashes among some of the older concubines. How she’d been scolded for using all the brown thread on her loom. How one of the cooks had had a grandson. How one of the ministers, another concubine's father, reckless and covetous and immoral, has been stripped of his title after stealing rice from the public granaries. How traveling monks had told their fortunes, said she'd live long, bring glory to her family. 

She sings to him, too. Drags her warm, nimble fingers along his scalp, the shell of his ears in the most dizzyingly affectionate way. 

The words, her voice, the fleeting promise of her touch, they tear at him. And Joonmyun trembles at the haunting, beautiful poetry about longing so deep it makes her bones rattle, makes her skin cry. And oh, how her love has frozen her, left her warped and twisted and torn apart, too sharp to be touched, too sharp to be loved but still aching for it, still dying for it. She'd cry a palace of pearls for his sake, burn herself on the edges of stars for him, if only he’d come back, if only he’d want her as she still wanted him.

And it’s very, very nearly like she understands. 

Joohyun tips forward to brush the tears away from his eyes, and Joonmyun curls his fingers around her wrists to keep her there, needing her there. With his whole body, needing her there. Needing her always. An ocean of need swelling within him always. 

Joonmyun takes her to his tree—his shorn, shamed tree—lays his head on her lap beneath its shade. 

And she shows him to weave blades of grass into rings, too. Plays baduk with him on the grass by the koi pond, too. 

And he laughs at the way her voice lilts in thinly-veiled placating pity, the way her wrist, delicate and so pale, twists as she counts her stones. 

She lets him use black, pauses with her hand hovering around one of his pieces, pitying. Or calculating. 

And Joonmyun isn’t sure if it's worse that she pities him as a child or that he somehow still fails to win.

But it— _she_ —soothes and soothes and soothes. 

The ancestors, the stars, they must have known. They’re easing his burden if only like this.

 

He’s bearing it. He’s bearing it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> s/o to my beta t, the most loyal blond suho enthusiast that you ever did see
> 
> we still got a-ways to go, folks


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: sadness, mild violence

The butcher folds his dried meat in cotton, and Joonmyun, overheated, dizzy, picks idly at the loose threads in the cheap fabric as he eats it cross-legged near the river. 

There are young lovers with flower crowns on their heads, flowers twisted into the folds of their robes. Joonmyun picks at the fallen flower petals by his feet instead, tilts his head up to watch the way the summer clouds skate—free and white and beautiful—across the endless, achingly blue sky.

He hears whispers in the marketplace—civil unrest, magisterial abuse, bad omens, too, a chicken born with three legs, crows roosting near the palace walls, how the butcher’s daughter had dreamt of a carp swallowing a dragon and vomiting flames. 

Has the gossip confirmed in the palace. 

Some of the old kings, the old noble families, they aren’t as accommodating as Joonmyun’s family, they aren’t as willing, aren’t so easily united.

 

And it’s duty, challenged royal authority that send the Crown Prince away.

And they lose even the pretense of marriage. Joonmyun even the fleeting warmth of the Crown Prince’s shadow, his gaze. The passing whisper of his silent, steady breathing. 

And the minutes, hours, days, weeks, they pass, and Joonmyun, he longs as he has and he will. Bears as he has and he will. He has practiced. He has learned. He was fated. He has known.

 

The Crown Prince was attacked by raiders on the road back home, Joonmyun hears, weeks later, whispered by a fruit stall, as Joonmyun weighs strawberries and apples in his palm.

They’d killed two horses, one man, injured the Crown Prince before being finally incapacitated. Executed.

The Crown Prince had taken down four alone and with only an injury on his thigh, but if they'd aimed higher. Or if they'd cut deeper.

It's why it is so reckless for him to persist on staying on the fields when he's the legitimate heir to the throne and still so young. Why it was nonsense for him to marry a male Crown Princess, regardless of what the stars had to say. It's why they worry for the future of the kingdom under his rule. It’s why the King should have considered foregoing tradition and finding a more worthy heir. The second prince. Really, the second prince. He is so strong and broad and tall and handsome and filial and smart.

Joonmyun, dropping his apple, his strawberry, he races back to the palace, through the gates, towards his own chambers.

More information filters through as he stumbles over the steps, through the columned halls. 

The wound on his thigh, it’s festering. And it wasn't raiders. And the astronomers, though it's day time, though it's impossible to know yet, they're worrying already over his star—whether it'll flicker out, what they'll do if it does—He doesn't have an heir apparent, and the Crown Princess, he's from a foreign power, how will they—

Joonmyun nearly topples, and the chief astronomer, the eldest, with his severe eyebrows and perpetual scowl, he catches him, supports him, races besides him. He joins him in the Crown Prince's quarters, fluttering nervously first by the table, then by the study, finally at the end of Joonmyun’s marriage bed.

His name is Yifan, he tells him. Then that he worries. The heavens are so fickle. Whimsical. All stars can be eclipsed. All stars can fall. And all they can hope is that Crown Prince Kyungsoo, Crown Princess Joonmyun live in harmony, act with virtue, behave in accordance with the universe’s wishes, cling tight to the favor they have if only for the generation, if only for the sake of the people. 

“It’s my duty,” Joonmyun agrees in a rushed, bitter murmur, and Yifan’s eyebrows pinch. "It's my purpose."

“It’s his Highness’, too, Crown Princess,” he says. "The force that binds you together,” he continues. “It belongs to both of you. It’s…beholden to—together. That’s how star works, they’re chained. Locked. Tied. The Crown Prince, the Crown Princess, the King, the Queen, Heaven and Earth, it’s just how—” He worries his bottom lip between his teeth, murmurs something foreign and frustrated. “Together,” he repeats, crossing his fingers, raising them to emphasize his point. “Yin and yang. Together. Both. Together.”

“Together,” Joonmyun echoes, and Yifan smiles. Small and tight.

And they wait and wait and wait—together.

The Crown Prince is staggering when he steps over the threshold, and he collapses on top of him with an exhausted groan. Joonmyun staggers, too, as he lays him across the bed. The servants peel off his shoes, his clothing. The palace physicians reprimand him for his crude, dirty binding as they clean the ugly, festering wound, dress it with crushed medicinal herbs. 

Eyes glassy, face frightening pale, body shaking, shaking, shaking, the Crown Prince nods, the most agreeable Joonmyun has ever seen him. 

And the chief court astronomer, Yifan, brushes his fingers through the Crown's sweaty brow, through his limp hair. Trembling, but so unsettlingly tender. 

The Crown Prince squeezes his quivering hand, steadies it. Joonmyun, unnerved, glances away. Yifan’s other hand continues to flutter, too, before curling in a tight fist at his side. It clenches, unclenches, clenches, unclenches.

And the Crown Prince, weak, so very small, so very pale, drifts into restless sleep.

 

His men stumble in as he rests. They’re battle-tested, battle-worn, battle-scarred, and dusty and sun-darkened and in various state of distress. Several are crying, one so heavily that he has to be taken away, his broad shoulders curling so, so, so small as his body wracks with pathetic, heartrending sobs. 

Joonmyun tips further back against the paper door as more and more and more men stumble in, wring their hands, shake violently. Joonmyun, he wrings his hand and shakes violently, too. 

And they pray and they watch and they cry and they watch and they watch and they watch until another soldier steps through the room. 

He’s small, but there’s an authoritative tilt to his dark, sharp eyes, confidence in the breadth of his shoulders, and the other soldiers part easily for him, scuffle away when he waves his hand. 

Yifan, Joonmyun’s one anchor, one familiar face, he leaves, too. 

Then it’s just the three of them. The Crown Prince, his husband, this soldier sliding forward to get a closer look. Then sliding even further forward until his thighs are pressed to the edge of Joonmyun’s marriage bed, the edge of the Crown Prince’s body. 

“Kyungsoo-yah,” he scolds, and it’s wet and weak. And his hand stumbles forward, as Yifan’s had, to pet over the furrow between the Crown Prince’s brows. Then shifts to cup his jaw. “Kyungsoo-yah,” he repeats. His hand trembles as he pulls it away, and his sleeve is drenched with blood, smears against the silk by the Crown Prince’s head as he flits restlessly along the bedsheets. “I _told_ you.”

He bites his lip hard, looks smaller as his shoulders shake, and he touches him again, blood-stained fingers skating tenderly over his eyebrows, the slope of his nose, the pucker of his lips, the hollow of his throat. And he holds it there, and Joonmyun he can’t look away. 

“I told Kyungsoo,” he says, turning to face Joonmyun. “I told the Crown Prince,” he corrects. “I told him to wear his medallions. I reminded him thrice, but he’s so careless. He thinks that we’ll think him less a man for taking precautions.” His voice cracks, and he swallows. His shoulders shake, square. His gaze drops back to the prone, small, weak Crown Prince. “It was meant to be an easy day of riding. He said he wanted to test out his new bow. I guess in the end that he did. Those raiders—those _assassins_ …” 

His fingers continue over the silk of the Crown Prince’s robe, then press flat to his chest. He watches his flat palm for several beats as if memorizing the pulse of the Crown Prince’s heartbeat. 

“You’re so _careless_. You’re our Prince, and you’re so _careless_.”

His fingers spasm, drag more blood across the embroidered silk. He tilts his head just the slightest in Joonmyun’s direction to speak to him.

“He will not want me when he rouses. He will not hear me. He will not have me.” _Neither will we want, nor hear, nor have me_. “Please tell him I’m angry at him. That I’m tired of his insistence on being so—” He shakes his head, moves his hand finally away, turns to face Joonmyun fully. “Tell him I reminded him thrice. Tell him he nearly made Sehunnie faint with fright.”

“I didn’t—” Joonmyun finally manages. “I don’t know—”

And his smile is rueful, sad, _misunderstanding_. “We met at the wedding, but Your Highness met many at the wedding. I’m his Grand General Kim Minseok. Please tell him for me.” 

Joonmyun nods shakily, and the Grand General’s smile is warmer, realer before he excuses himself. 

Exhausted, Joonmyun collapses back once more. His back sags against the wall, fingers tremble over the varnished wood column at his sides, and the Crown Prince groans in his sleep, startling him forward. 

“They’re tied, too,” Yifan starts, stepping into the room. “The Grand General and the Crown Prince, they’ve been connected since birth.” He pauses, tugs at the ends of his robes. “Our Crown Prince, he is well-loved by the kingdom, by his men. What he loves, who he loves, they will be just as beloved.” 

Joonmyun bites his lip hard at the irreverent protest crawling up his throat, grateful when the Crown Prince’s glassy eyes flutter open. 

And yes, his star, it’s flickering—but only just the slightest, Yifan informs. He’ll be fine, so long as he heeds the doctor’s orders, makes offerings, thanks the gods for their blessing. 

And the Crown Prince laughs, weak, weak, weak, but thanks him for the reassurance. 

Then Yifan, reluctant as the action seems, he leaves, too. 

The Crown Prince’s smile, weak, weak, weak, slides finally off his face. 

And then there's the mountain of cold, gnawing, vast silence between them. 

Joonmyun is grateful when the Crown Prince falls asleep once more.

 

The palace physicians, they’ve put him on bedrest while he heals. 

And vulnerability, oddly, it becomes him. Makes him more human. Makes him more real. Makes him less terrifying. A doll that hurts, that bleeds, that cries, that needs—just like him. Needs _him_ , if only for the moment. 

Joonmyun settles gingerly besides him on their bed, decides against it, and moves to the other side—far, safe and far. But he still turns on his elbow to watch him. 

The light from the moon, from their flickering candles, it’s harsh on his profile, casts sharp, dark, dark shadows. Paints him something gaunt and inhuman and monstrous. And his eyebrows are pinched in pain even in sleep. 

It takes Joonmyun a long time to follow.

 

The maids deliver rice porridge, tea the next morning, and Joonmyun—precariously sympathetic, startlingly sentimental—cradles his head as he spoon feeds him. Sweat beads on his pallid, furrowed brow, and his plush lips are nearly white, trembling with every rattling breath. 

And it’s nice in a way to feel useful, to feel purposeful. It's nice to feel needed. If only for the moment. 

“I’ve had worse,” the Crown Prince says, as Joonmyun settles beside him on their bed and stares at the the herb poultice they have wrapped around the wound. 

And when he shifts, Joonmyun can see that it isn’t an untruth, can see the ugly, ribboned pucker of many, many other scars, some deeper, uglier. His hand stumbles forward, then away. He smooths the wrinkles in their silk sheets instead. Then decides against that, too, dabs the sweat beading on his brow. 

But the Crown Prince’s face pinches with displeasure, and Joonmyun’s hand jerks away. 

“Did they tell you this was your duty? The palace women? My family?”

And honestly, it makes sense that the Crown Prince would depreciate, devalue Joonmyun’s good deeds, too. The Doh, they always seem in search of more reasons to throw him away. Even when he’s _trying_ —

Joonmyun exhales, dabs harder, relishes in the way the Crown Prince blinks and grimaces and jerks. 

“You’re behaving awfully poorly for someone in need of caring, Your Highness.”

Bold. Too bold. 

The Crown Prince sets his chin, raises a dark eyebrow. His lips—pale and quivering—purse. His gaze, glassy as it is, it burns. 

“They did," Joonmyun breathes after a beat. "Does it bother you, my care?”

“It confuses me.”

“Aren’t I your bride? Isn’t it my duty?"

 _Our stars are **bound**_. 

He hums in assent or displeasure or dismissal.

“At least it’s somewhere I can see it,” he muses, tilting his head forward, the movement weak and shuddery. The corner of his lip twists upwards in a grimace, strained. 

Joonmyun swallows. “The physicians, they were really worried, regardless. The astronomer. Your Grand General…”

“Minseok hyung always worries,” he says, waving his arm in dismissal. And that is weak, too, shuddery, too. “As if he hasn’t seen much worse. Borne much worse. As if he hasn’t _ordered_ my men to bear much worse. He always…” A pause, another grimace. " _Patronizes_ just because his mother was a palace lady and my wet nurse, thinks he's like a real hyung. Thinks because he's taller than me and just a little bit stronger—" He sighs in exasperation. 

“He said, the amulets. Guardian figures on your belt. That—your sutras.”

“The Guardian spirits on my sword, too, right?” The Crown Prince’s smile is amused, cruel only at the corners. “The protection amulets he insists I carry for the kingdom's sake, right?" Joonmyun nods slowly, and the Crown Prince laughs. And it sounds strained, painful even as his eyes curl at the corners with it. "But it wasn't the Blue Dragon or the White Tiger on my sword. It was my _sword_ , and it was how I used it. It was that I didn't give them a chance to hurt me or my men—even though...even though one—” His eyebrows pinch, lips purse, distressed.

“They weren’t raiders," Joonmyun recalls. "They didn’t take your crown, your horses, your gold.”

“I didn’t give them a chance,” he laughs. "They weren't," he confirms a beat later with a scowl. “There isn’t a shortage of people that want me dead. Isn’t a shortage of disguises they’ll use to try and accomplish that.” He swallows, locks his eyes with his in an unexpectedly solemn gaze. His voice is solemn, too, maybe even apologetic. “Because you’re my Princess, they’ll want you, too.” 

Joonmyun bites his lip, drops his gaze, twists his fingers in an embroidered lotus by his husband’s knee. "They had warned me as such.”

“You are a Doh, after all.”

 

It takes a month for the wound to heal. And in that time, the sympathy, the sentimentality, it doesn’t dissipate.

Joonmyun helps him eat, helps the palace nurses change him, bathe him, lift him to use the chamber pot for the first two weeks, then balance him as they escort him to the toilets instead. 

He cleans his wounds, reapplies his herb poultice, too. Rights his sheets, his clothing. Sits beside him when he gets visits. The court astronomers. His Grand General. Other assorted officers. His advisors. His lecturers. The King. The Queen. The palace physicians again and again and again. 

The stars, he hopes they know. He hopes they help. He hopes they bless.

 

But Joonmyun’s scandalous behavior, this injury, it’s a sign. It’s because the heavens are displeased. It’s because the Doh are being punished. 

And oh, they make their displeasure known in other ways, too, he hears whispered in the marketplace. The trees wailing with human voices, crows circling the palace doors, goblins stealing goats. The butcher, he’d seen a halo around the sun. The musician, a spot of blood on the moon. And the tailor, he’d heard from his brother in the East that the ground had shaken, too, so hard a hill had been torn in two.

It’s a shame that the Crown Prince hasn’t been visiting the Royal Consort enough, a shame that he loves his scandalous, immoral Crown Princess too much to perform his duties. To be the kind of Crown Prince that the Doh need. 

This was a warning, and he should really heed it. 

This is a warning, and the Crown Princess should really be sent away. 

They should find someone more worthy. 

Joonmyun, he's trying—so, so hard—to be more worthy.

They commemorate the start of farming season soon after, as is customary with ancestral rites, with cold food, mugwort cake, dumplings, soup, take the palanquins to the royal tombs. And with the Crown Prince, King, Queen, Queen Mother, consorts, concubines, Joonmyun makes offerings at their altars.

The incense shakes in its glazed holder, in his hands, burns acrid and too, too sweet in his eyes. Cowed, terrified, he offers honor and glory to foreign ancestors, prays they’ll heed his prayers, too. Prays for love and warmth and the ability to grow and prosper here and bring them glory too, so long as it stops aching. He’ll try. He wants so, so, so badly. But please, please, it hurts. 

Dwarfed and insignificant before their ornate, imposing, beautiful tombs, begging still, small as an ant, helpless and insignificant as one, too, starving for their favor.

The Doh hire magicians, too, shamans, too. 

The spirits, he knows, are greedy, covetous, meddlesome, seek always to test the loyalty of those that would call themselves uniters, curse always those that fall short of their exacting standards. And the Doh make to sooth and placate and honor them. 

They make ritual offerings of grain and wine and slaughtered animals. Then a ritual dance. 

Joonmyun sees, for the first time, the famous, preferred Second Prince. His silhouette is broad and lean and tall and strong. Handsome, he’s heard. Graceful, he sees. 

His golden chains rattle as he sways with the pounding drums in ancient, blessed choreography, violent and captivating and beautiful. 

And Joonmyun’s skin rattles with the echoing reverb, eyes dazed on the way the light seems to sparkle on the vibrant silk of his robes.

 

The Crown Prince, as soon as he’s healed—enough—he calls for a hunting party. More war games. Then more military drills.

Heeding the warning. Understanding the frailty of his royal authority. Taking the necessary steps to protect it. 

And the Crown Prince, he insists that Joonmyun come. 

As Joonmyun dismounts from his horse—a tiny, sickly thing used for training children—he hears one of the soldiers joke about how their tents will have to be further away, to avoid the _sounds_. The Prince and Princess, they’re newlywed still, veritably still lost in each other, both young, both virile, and they should have their privacy. 

Misplaced shame burns through him, concentrates on his cheeks. 

Someone quips that they will be sure to stuff the ears of any particularly curious soldiers, too. 

No one is to take what belongs to the future king—especially not the sound of the future queen’s pleasure. 

Joonmyun stays behind his horse, unsure if it was a comment he was meant to hear, unsure of how he is to react if he wasn’t. 

He unloads his horse in silence, presses his face to the horse’s soft muzzle and feels the tickle of his hair with every single breath. 

He breathes and breathes and breathes.

 

There is archery again. Horse races, too. Arrow and spear throwing. Stone battles. Wrestling. 

Joonmyun is seated near his husband, who throws his head back with alarming laughter, throws his arm around a tall, thin, beautiful soldier. And he keeps falling forward to whisper in his ear. The one that had cried so hard he’d had to be taken out of the room, Joonmyun realizes. The one that had kept sending medicinal teas. 

The Regiment Commander, still tall, still lean, still handsome, still undefeated throws soldiers after soldier onto the thick yellow grass. 

And Joonmyun he’s a spectator until he isn’t. Beckoned forward by one of the commanders. Fierce as he is, he should see if he can best any of them. Should show that even pretty small things can be deadly. Grand General Minseok, he isn’t enough proof. 

Joonmyun is coaxed onto the ring, coaxed into the belt, coaxed into position. 

It’s a boy, at first. Or just barely, barely a man. Too lanky, all awkward angles, apologetic smiles when Joonmyun smarts at the graze of his fingers over his thigh. He falls too easily when Joonmyun tugs. As does the second, the third, scared of hurting or insulting the Crown Princess, the Crown Prince. 

Joonmyun, annoyed, challenges the Crown Prince. A chorus erupts. 

His hands curl loosely around Joonmyun’s waist, adjusting his stance, then around his belt. Joonmyun follows. And he can feel the thrum of his pulse, the rise and fall of his breathing, the ripple of his muscles, a soldier’s strength, quiet and assured and daunting as he settles on his haunches, calls for the start.

And they struggle for dominance. And Joonmyun, he gives it all he’s got.

He can feel the Crown Prince’s heart beat, his breathing as his own, can feel the distinct tense and release of every strong, rippled muscle beneath his aged, worn armor, can feel the wet kiss of his breathing against his throat, the wetter kiss of his sweat. 

A thrill jolts up Joonmyun’s spine when he pushes at the back of his knee, unsettling him, nearly toppling him like a Grand Tree. And it’s heady, the rush of emotion, the sudden cheer, the reedy rise of an impressed whistle, but it’s fleeting, the Crown Prince finding himself again, overcorrecting—moving too gentle, then suddenly too gruff. He slides his leg between Joonmyun’s before twisting his entire body, dropping him swiftly, roughly on his back.

The air is punched out of his lungs, his legs kicking, and the Crown Prince collapses on top of him when Joonmyun tries to loosen himself. His hands feel bruisingly tight around Joonmyun's wrists, not even the slightest give no matter how he struggles. Panting, winded, squirming desperate, fruitless, helpless, helpless, helpless, dazed Joonmyun upsets the soft dirt beneath him, chokes on it, blinks past blinding, stinging clouds of dust, gives it all he has again, all he can manage and somehow still still still—

It’s a different sort of thrill that burns through him then, adrenaline and fear, and something molten and dark and heady and terrifying and hot hot hot. He coughs loudly, kicks once more, blindly between the Crown Prince’s legs, and the Crown Prince, grunting, finally, finally relents. Finally, finally rises. Finally, finally frees him. 

The Crown Prince, he’s panting, too, winded, too, a fat dollop of sweat sliding down his cheek, disappearing into his heaving throat. And his cheeks are flushed and his eyebrows pinched, and Joonmyun, he’d almost won—if only just for a second. He’d almost, almost bested him. 

One of the soldiers, impudent, overbold, he wonders aloud if this is how they fuck. If this is how the Prince takes the Princess when he’s being difficult, when he needs to be reminded of his place. The Grand General curls small fingers around his elbow, twists, and the man collapses, wheezing, bows deeply in apology to the Crown Prince, Joonmyun before running away, red-faced. At least thrice around the perimeter, the Grand General yells after him. 

And there’s too much heat in Joonmyun's cheeks, in his belly, to much churning shame there, too, as he’s helped to his feet. 

He’s bright-eyed and tall, nameless, the soldier that steps forward to help him, and his hand is unnervingly large against Joonmyun’s. And oh no, it’s the soldier boy, the one that had made the Crown Prince’s entire face pinch with laughter, the one that had cried so hard for him, like a child. Joonmyun curls his hands into fists, sets his face into a scowl as he jerks away, slaps the dirt away from his dirtied robes. 

He trembles with pride, with anger, with indignation. And it rages and rages and rages—once more.

 

“I’m to train you,” the Regiment Commander informs him before dinner that night as the twilit clouds kiss the horizon. "The Crown Prince, he says he worries how you’ll fare when he’s away. Says he wants you to know how to fight.”

Joonmyun braves a glance to where the Crown Prince is standing. His face is pinched in thought, lips pursed, eyes narrowed, and he motions with his hands as he speaks with his Grand General. Joonmyun had overheard bits and pieces of it. Discussing strategy, logistics. Some of the noble families, in the outskirts of their territories, they’ve been collecting bigger armies, for no apparent reason. Sending envoys to one another, also for no apparent reason. And they have to prepare. Have to just in case. Have to remind them, conquer without conquering, cow without threatening. 

The Regiment Commander clears his throat, and Joonmyun jerks back to meet his gaze again. 

"Is this necessary for all sequestered spouses?”

He feels the rumble of the Commander's—Wonshik, please, Your Highness—aborted chuckle. The fleeting heat of it, too.

“Princesses, you mean? Concubines? Queens?” Joonmyun hums in acknowledgement, but keeps watching the Crown Prince, the way his shoulders rise, then sag with a defeated sigh. And Wonshik watches him watch the Crown Prince for only a beat before pulling on the belt in reminder. Joonmyun lurches forward. Their foreheads collide. His heavy eyelashes kiss against Joonmyun’s. His breath tickles against Joonmyun’s parted lips. And it’s unsettling the brush of skin on skin still. Even like this. Joonmyun's skin so aching, achingly raw. 

"They’ll be crueler with you because you're a man. They’ll treat you like they’ve treated him. Like a threat. And that’s why it’s necessary for you to learn. That's why the Crown Prince would have you learn."

“Will they always fight like this? With a belt? Face to face? On a ring? With clear rules? A clear winner?“ he breathes, and Wonshik's laughter is sudden, bright and sharp, disarming. He tugs—hard, sudden. Joonmyun staggers. He laughs again—even louder—and it echoes through Joonmyun’s entire body.

“We’d be so lucky,” he says. His hands drop from the belt, knead into Joonmyun’s thigh, coaxing, adjusting. “He’s asked others, too. Other ways to protect yourself. This is just to prepare you. But I know you want to beat him, and I'm the only one that’s ever managed.” The playful lilt at the end of his sentence burns against Joonmyun’s throat. “So listen,” he says. “Learn,” he says.

Joonmyun spreads his thighs, twists his fingers tighter in Wonshik’s belt, tacit agreement.

Wonshik’s brief smile, it’s blindingly bright. 

“Center yourself, Princess," he instructs. "Twist. Put your leg like that right between mine. Pivot your leg. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Tug.”

Joonmyun does, tugs so hard, his shoulders ache, tries to roll, but Wonshik remains steady, upright, doesn’t shift even the slightest. Strong. Better. But his smile is indulgent, proud, reminds Joonmyun of his writing instructor’s whenever Joonmyun painted his strokes correctly.

“Brute strength is a part of it,” he says. “Unfortunately.”

Joonmyun sighs in frustration, and his forehead slides against the woven irons plates in Wonshik’s armor. It stings. He presses even harder, breathes consciously past the ache, and Wonshik's hands slide around his waist, over his ribs, settle on his shoulders.

“We’ll get you some of that brute strength, I’ll make sure of it. And the training will be worth it, I promise, for the look on his face when you beat him.” His voice lilts, boyish and bright. “It was one of the best moments of my life.”

This smile, it’s more conspiratorial. No less blinding, no less beautiful. Joonmyun smiles back. Asks to try again and again and again.

 

At dinner, he watches his husband, the way the steam from their rice billows across all the sharp, cutting contours of his face, the way the flickering candlelight dances across the cut of his dark eyes, full lips, strong jaw. 

Indignant, he recalls the lie that they had told him, the balance and harmony and heaven-mandated perfection of them, how there was a choice in the matter when the stars were so _clear_.

And Joonmyun wonders how he’s ever supposed to tame a tiger, wear away at an impossibly tall, impossibly imposing, sharp, sharp mountain, why they’d called it a balance, an auspicious match, why they’d implied there would be some equality, why they’d said it would work, Joonmyun’s stars, Joonmyun’s humors, when he isn’t ever given a chance to influence him, too, to mold or cut or tear at him, too. 

Wonders how the stars could have been so wrong and why two kingdoms would scramble to heed their advice in spite of their whimsy and awful instability. 

But he’ll beat him, Joonmyun decides, swallowing thickly around too-hot, too-lumpy rice. He’ll show him. Or he’ll try. Even if failure is inevitable, he’ll at the very least try.

 

There are guards stationed outside his tent that night, a precautionary measure, the Crown Prince tells him when Joonmyun startles at the sight. And the stark moonlight casts their shadows long and tall and awful and monstrous, an awful, awful reminder. Joonmyun shudders at the reminder. 

But he is otherwise alone. Alone as always. Aching with yearning as always. He recalls the heavy, crushing weight of the Crown Prince’s thighs against his, the brand of his breath against his throat, then the sweep of that soldier’s glance down his body, the assessing, light, light skate of his large palms down Joonmyun’s sides. 

And shuddering, he slides his fingers beneath his robes, between his legs. And his skin is goosebumped, prickling with an agonizing sensitivity, and it’s distracting and it’s welcome and it’s all he really has. Joonmyun curls his fist around himself tight, steady. Desperate and undone as he feels, he takes it slow this time, tries to savor it. Distract from the crushing, crushing agony of loneliness teasing at the edges of his consciousness. Orgasm, sweet and toe-curling as it is, it only barely, barely allays it. 

And he's bearing it, as much as he can. Learning to adjust as much as he can.

 

They ride back the next morning after a breakfast of porridge and tea, and tilting his head back, Joonmyun stares up at the endless, crushing, beautiful sky, savors it for just a moment longer. This brief, beautiful taste.

It’d been a gift, a gift from his husband. Whether he knew it or not. And it’s a gift, too, a sort of gift when the Crown Prince leaves that evening, marching further North with his men, leaving Joonmyun to piece together the twisted shards of his own heart, leaving him to hurt in private with dignity. 

Joonmyun calls Joohyun that night, asks her to stay until he’s fallen asleep. Then the next night. Then the next night. Then the next. Can’t when the Crown Prince slides beside him the night after. His presence, it’s a mockery. A resounding pang of longing. And it hurts. And he hurts. 

It was foolish, he knows. His mission. His goal. 

The Crown Prince is all hard, hard lines, defined muscles, unyielding strength, and Joonmyun, he’s somehow meant to best it. Somehow meant to best him. Somehow meant to _prove_ himself, when even his country, his military, his family, his name had failed.

And Joonmyun is raw wherever their skin touches.

He feels loneliest at his husband’s side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im gonna try to keep to the once a week update timeline
> 
> thanks to the people that are still reading


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings: more sadness!!!!

But they aren’t empty words, false promises, Regiment Commander's Wonshik’s. 

And his training, with Wonshik, it’s informal, whenever the Regiment Commander has time, energy, whenever he’s in the area. Other commanders, too. Other officers. Other men he’d seen bent over the Crown Prince’s bedside. 

And they mean to protect him. To show him how to protect himself. It's their duty as Officers of the Crown, duty to their future Queen. An honor, moreover. 

They show him the basics. Train with short sticks, play swords. Teach him how to aim for the chest, the back of the knees. To cut straight, angular, lateral, diagonal, spinning fast, then faster, then faster, then harder. To hit with the intent to disarm. Then to hit to hurt, to kill. Then to use two swords. They take him to the blacksmiths to watch the smelting process, laugh when he jerks at the sharp hiss of steam. Then they teach him to shoot. Then to fight with his fists, his legs. How to strike and where, how to lock and rotate his knee, shoulder, elbow, how to use another's strength to his advantage. 

Hold me like this, My Princess. Anticipate your opponent’s move like this, My Princess. Think ahead and block them, My Princess. Hit me as hard as you can, My Princess. Don't be afraid to hurt me. But tell me if I hurt you. Again, Princess. Harder, My Princess. Faster, My Princess. 

But, no, no, harder, Joonmyun insists, too. Harder. Harder. Harder. He can take it. He is meant to learn to defend himself. Meant to be strong. Be fierce. Be independent. Wants to be useful if only in this. And they indulge him, help him lift his exhausted body afterwards. 

The sessions end often with Joonmyun battered and bloody and bruised and drenched in sweat, sticky and burning wherever skin meets skin. Boneweary and weak with it but consumed with the singular need to push harder, harder, harder. 

And Joonmyun, he learns to love them. The sessions, his trainers. 

Just Officer Hyunwoo, impossibly broad, impossibly strong, his soft eyes, his boyish smile, the curl of his muscles, the curl of his lips at Joonmyun’s temple. Aim. Release. Aim. Release. And his laughter and his embrace when Joonmyun hits his mark. He’d have killed a man with that shot. He’d have earned that death.

And Battalion Commander Taekwoon, awkward but so very kind, unendingly patient, his disconcerting soft voice, his clipped, curt sentences, the paradoxically gruff, brusque gentleness and hesitance to his touches. How he pauses whenever Joonmyun gasps, whenever Joonmyun stiffens or jerks. How he whispers praises to him about how with practice, with _plenty_ of practice, Joonmyun will be decent. More than decent. Worthy. More than worthy. 

And Vice General Hoseok, the alarming breadth of his shoulders, the sharp bark of his laughter, the tender, careful way he turns Joonmyun’s limbs, checks his bruises, his aches, offers Joonmyun free strikes whenever he’s hurt him too much, pushed him too much, his small Princess. 

And Regiment Commander Wonshik and his rumbling laugh, glittery eyes, croaked stories. The Crown Prince, oh don’t tell him he’s said this, he’s so sensitive about his reputation and he hates the thought of not being taken seriously, but the Crown Prince, the first time he’d struck with a sword, he’d done it so hard that he’d broken his wrist. And oh, the Crown Prince, please don’t tell him he’s said this, but he’d broken his foot for the same reason from kicking Wonshik when he’d had his armor on. And oh, the Crown Prince, once, oh once, he’d ridden so fast that his robes had gotten tangled on his horse’s mane and he’d fallen off—right in front of all of his men, who tried their _hardest_ not to laugh because he’s so sensitive, so very concerned with his pride and reputation. The Crown Prince, please don’t let him make you believe that he’s some proud, powerful, scary soldier. But please, oh please, don’t tell him he’s told him. 

And Platoon Commander Changmin, too. And Just Officers Taecyeon and Dongho, too. And nameless, faceless, countless, countless others,too. All of them intent on keeping him safe, they insist. Honored to be training him, they also insist. Their correcting, tight grips on his hips, shoulders, legs, arms, the heated brush of their breath against his neck, the murmurs of approval when he rights his posture, attacks or blocks as he should, the blunt ache of a wooden sword on Joonmyun's thigh, his belly, his chest, his throat. 

Joonmyun learns to love the brute male strength of it, the vice tight squeeze of his lungs, the burning protest of his sore, growing muscles, the residual ache in his bones. The way that bruises bloom purple and ugly and throbbing on his skin. A type of ache he can see, a hurt he can choose, a hurt that serves a purpose. 

Loves, too, the tender graze of Joohyun's fingers on the throbbing skin, the breathy admiration in her voice. 

Loves also the promise, wild as it is, of one day finally besting the Crown Prince, even if only for one time, even if only in this way. 

And oh, the touch and the touch and the touch. 

For it, Joonmyun learns to love even the sting of sweat in his eyes, learns to love even the taste of blood in his mouth.

 

They invite him for their summer training. 

It’s new soldiers, new recruits, untrained, uninitiated, eager to please, they stumble as they does, fumble as he does, struggle as he does. But are scolded, taunted, then begrudgingly praised for their efforts unlike he is. 

With an audience, Joonmyun pushes himself even harder, grips his wooden sword so tight that his wrist aches, that splinters bite into his palm. He swings, misses, swings, lands, spins, strikes, strikes, strikes, dodges, is struck. The shock of it reverberates through his entire body, and his wooden sword falls to the ground. His neck burns hot, frustration and shame. But he’ll learn. He needs to learn. 

Again. Harder, he urges. Treat me as you treat them, he urges. Please. I am like them. Please. I can handle it. Please. I can do this. I can belong. Let me prove that I belong. 

There’s a persistent ache in his side, a tightness in his forearm, but he pushes past it. Swings. Misses. Strikes. Pants. Feels his pulse with every labored inhale and exhales. Taunts. Cajoles. Swings. Strikes. Spins. Blocks. Pants. Blinks past the sting of sweat in his eyes. Taunts. Cajoles. Swings. Strikes. Is struck. 

Hard. 

Fast. 

It steals his breath. 

Winded, he collapses back against the grass, gasps for air. He bears it, bites his lip hard to keep from crying out as he attempts to sit up. Can’t. 

“Princess?” 

And he’s stumbling forward, this officer, his eyebrows pinched with worry. 

Joonmyun shifts, winces, and he’s cursing, tearing off his helmet, falling to his knees besides him. 

He tugs at Joonmyun’s robes, unceremoniously tugs them open, and he hisses out another curse as he presses down on his rib. Something low and unrecognizable, but thick with anger. Flushed, humiliated, Joonmyun jerks back from the touch. 

“Can you breathe? Does it hurt to breath?” And his hand, it still hovers. 

Joonmyun nods, then shakes his head. Naked, vulnerable, he blinks back the prickling of helpless tears in his eyes, swallows past the thick lump of indignation in his throat. 

“The Crown Princess is just—” He sighs, falls back on his haunches. “Just _exactly_ like Crown Prince Kyungsoo. The two of you really are—” He sighs heavily once more, skims just once more, and the callus on his palm drags and scrapes, burns. “Limits are—How long has this been hurting? If this had broken, you’d be bedridden for a month. And the Crown Prince would—”

And _of course_. 

Joonmyun squirms, shoves at his hand, tugs uselessly at his robes. His fingers fumble on the bindings, and it’s still much, much too hard to breath. 

But he tries. Half-succeeds. 

“Would you scold your foot soldiers like this?” He manages. “Tell them to—”

“My soldiers know to tell me, Your Highness. My soldiers are not so obstinately foo—.” He exhales, holds out his hand, and Joonmyun refuses it, staggers to his own feet, picks up his tossed sword. 

Grimacing, breathing slowly,consciously, he gets into position, parts his legs, grips his word. 

But—

“No more, Princess. I need you to see the rest. I need you visit the nurses when you return.”

And oh, a crowd has gathered. Oh, a crowd has heard. 

The soldiers, recognizing him finally, begin to bow, begin to fuss. 

It sends Joonmyun lumbering away. 

Isolated, winded, he watches the way that they train, fight, cheer, belong—without him.   
The proud red near Just Officer Taecyeon's thighs flutters in the sticky summer air as he spins, light and beautiful as a butterfly's wings, but lethal. Joonmyun yearns to be the same.

 

The nurses fuss, too, apply poultices, insist on drinking medicinal tea, on staying in bed. Not weeks. Just days. Just healing. 

And the Crown Prince’s eyes linger and prickle on his skin. But he remains silent, as Joonmyun likes him best.

 

Joonmyun bears physical marks for it now. More physical marks for it now. He earns them deeper and darker and uglier and more tender to the touch. 

He presses down on them, the aching muscles, mottled skin when he lays alone at bed, presses until it hurts as he dips slowly between his legs, teasing and grazing and circling and pressing just just just barely inside as he curls his fist around his cock. 

The pleasure sings sharp and sweet through his entire body, and the calluses on his hands—dizzyingly new and even more dizzyingly rough—they almost make it feel like another person is touching him. And it’s nearly enough.

 

The first time he topples Wonshik, he nearly cries in relief, doesn’t even care that he knows Wonshik is exhausted from campaigns near their northern border—the hollows under his eyes so obviously bruised from lack of sleep—doesn’t care that he’d gone easy on him even then. Doesn’t care because this is his victory, his fleeting, qualified victory. And Wonshik’s laugh—breathless and so, so bright—is so pretty, and so achingly proud. 

And Joonmyun, he is also achingly proud, soaring with it. 

Wonshik laughs even brighter, even more pretty when Joonmyun collapses in exhaustion, sweat-drenched, bone-weary, his entire body a racing thrum of a pulse. Voice soft with exhaustion, too, Wonshik tells him that he’s known the Crown Prince since they were children, when his head was too big for his body and he was scrappiest of all to prove a point that they shouldn’t hold back, not because he was small, not because he was meant to be king. 

The cool breeze kisses against his skin, and Joonmyun likes the low drone of Wonshik's voice, the way pleasant fatigue settles into his bones. And he waits and hopes and waits. 

And trains and trains and trains.

 

There is another festival, a celebration of another auspicious, heaven-blessed day. There are fruit salads, flower cakes piled high and beautiful on their oversized tables, chrysanthemum liquor filled to nearly brimming in their fine, foreign, fragile green-glazed jars. 

And Joonmyun, reeling with intoxication, presses down on the bruises on his wrists, his elbows, his thighs—presses on the aching, purpled skin beneath his fine, foreign robes to ground himself. 

It helps. 

And that night, much, much, much later, when he’s dizzy with just the faintest flicker of intoxication, Joohyun’s fingers skate appreciatively down his sides, her lips, too, tracing over the rippling muscles, soothing over the fading bruises. She laughs at his shudder, kisses it away. And they celebrate together, in earnest.

 

And there’s a monotony in it, a routine in it, a ritual, a custom, awful repetition of it, too, but the sweetness of a goal, too, a dream, too, a glittery oasis of hope, too. 

A regiment. A purpose. 

Joonmyun practices alone often in the gardens before even the servant girls have risen, hears often their conversations, their lilting voicing a grounding hum through the stickiness of sweat on his skin, the reckless pounding of his own heartbeat. 

They dust carpets, pound rice cake, wash grains, tend to plants, converse, gossip, observe, grieve, ail. Prepare for the upcoming exorcism ritual. Complain about the newborn prince’s teething habits. Worry about their family’s health. Whisper about the Second Prince’s search for a worthy bride. A more worthy one, they’ve heard, than the Crown Princess with his sad eyes and sad smile.

 

Autumn comes. Slow, slow, slow. Bleeds the heat, the hours from the days, paints the trees, the mountains a dusty, gorgeous, gorgeous gold. 

And dead leaves scatter across the fields, the mountains, the palace, and Joonmyun watches them float across the serene water, finds them caught in the folds of his robes, inhales past them when Wonshik pins him to the soft ground. 

He crushes the brittle, beautiful, fragile, fragile pieces between his trembling fingertips at the markets, in the gardens, in his bedchambers, too. 

And there’s a certain beauty in the quiet stillness and impending death, beauty in the hope for the coming harvest. And Joonmyun misses his family, misses his Kingdom, misses his home. Misses them with his whole body. 

Joonmyun crushes, too, the brittle, dying, dying, dead grass beneath his feet. Emptied out, paper thin, feels like he’s dying, too—briefly, briefly.

 

There are scattered autumn showers, violent and insistent interruptions to the stillness of autumn. They steal Joonmyun’s hours, steal his sunshine, his freedom, his hope. 

That night, as it pours and pours and pours, the Crown Prince stumbles into their chambers, a ghost, a shadow, a cruel, cruel play of light. 

He’s soaked to the bone and quivering and vulnerable and small, tendrils of black hair plastered to his forehead. His dark robes drop heavy and loud when he’d peeled out of his clothing, and he quivers harder then, looks even smaller then. 

Joonmyun’s fingers itch, sudden and inexplicable, to cradle him through every distinct tremor, so he twists them into fists instead, turns abruptly on his side, stiffens only just the slightest when his husband slides beside him on their bed. And his skin burns where they brush, but he itches to touch even then. If only, he thinks deliriously. If only they’d been right, the stars. If only they’d been right, their kingdoms. 

And the rain outside continues to pound and pound and pound. 

And it’s such a foolish, fleeting hope.

 

And even the lingering heat begins to fade. 

The days grow shorter, darker, colder, more golden.   
The palace women talk about how their fingers ache from weaving, how their hearts ache from longing. How they also seek a love so powerful it makes even the cruel heavens weep, has their beautiful lover journeying across the silver river if only for a moment, if only for a sweet, sweet promise of their beloved. 

Then about the coming harvest. About the harvest festival. About how the shamans have been saying this winter will be an especially difficult one. Cruel. Brutal. Very, very lonely, very, very long.

And at the market, the lovers grow bolder, press closer, longer, seek the heat of one another’s bodies. And Joonmyun takes another bite from his persimmon as he watches them laugh and whisper and hold each other in the sharp autumn chill. 

Alone, as always, Joonmyun dusts his fingers on the ends of his robes, pulls them tighter against the cruel frost-laced bite of coming winter.

 

And they have their biggest celebration, yet. Their biggest banquet. The Mid-Autumn Festival.

And neck stiff from bowing, shoulders heavy with purpose and dread, eyes burning with incense smoke, Joonmyun offers ancestral rites to not his ancestors, sincere and reverent and terrified. 

The excess ash rains on his skin, on the ends of his robes, and it burns. And he, too, burns. 

There’s a tug of war. Wrestling. Music. Revelry. The harvest, their wealth. 

Joonmyun stares up at the moon and hates it still, hates it even more, its jealous hold, the sun’s, the stars', all of their terrible impositions and desires and curses. 

But oh they have a large enough harvest to sustain them and they’ve survived, will survive, Joonmyun along with them, Joonmyun now as one of them.

Bristling at the thought, the weight of Doh eyes on him, he drinks rice wine to excess, to exhilarating, freeing, sweet, sweet intoxication, sways in his seat as it finally hits. 

He eats to excess, too, to nausea and then just slightly past that, too. And he mashes the ornate rice cakes between his fingers, smears paste on his fingers, his robes. Ashamed, he drops the crushed, sticky pieces on the floor by his feet, hiding his mistake like a child. Digging his thumb into the fresh bruise on his knee, he breathes and bears and breathes and bears.

 

Autumn fades. Bleeds slow, slow, slow into winter, colder, more bitter, more isolating. 

And they call another training party. 

The soldiers are wearing heavier layers beneath their armor, clocks and fur lined layers over their armor, too, their breaths billowing white like dragon’s fire as they shiver, chatter their teeth around their crackling campfire. 

And war, it doesn’t wait for optimal weather, the Grand General barks. It doesn’t care if it’s too cold, and your fingers keep trembling and tingling from the biting chill. And your muscles, they don’t care if the low sun makes your sleepy, makes you sluggish They’ll atrophy just the same, no matter your excuse. And it’s their charge as soldiers of the Crown, as _men_ to protect their kingdom, protect their king, their Crown Prince. It’s their duty. And they’ll perform it like _men_. They won’t be complacent. They won’t be negligent. 

The soldiers, they fall in line

They run to warm themselves. Run again for running’s sake. 

And the Grand General keeps pushing, pushing, pushing, only stops when several soldiers double over in exhaustion and empty their stomachs in the grass. And they’re lucky honestly that Grand General Minseok is willing to wait. The enemy, it won’t.   
The war games, they’re shorter this round. 

Archery, arrow throwing, running, wrestling, racing on their horses, throwing spears. Keeping their bodies nimble, strong, warm, too. 

And Joonmyun, the Crown Prince, Grand General Minseok, Regiment Command Wonshik, other commanders, other officers—nameless, proper, backs straight, but trembling from the sharp chill—they all watch. 

They gather around the campfire afterwards, at noon, chapped fingers shooting out of their metal-plated gloves, bumbling forward to collect the steam billowing from their rice porridge, their boiling tea. 

They huddle close, close, closer still, and Joonmyun is jostled forward then immediately righted. And there are bows, bent knees, apologies—profuse, sincere, humiliating apologies—Crown Princess, they hadn’t meant it. They hadn’t know. They hadn’t seen. Is he hurt? Is he angry? They really will try to be more careful. Please accept their sincere apologies. Please, please, have a seat. They’ll bring him tea and porridge. Or would he like them to move. They can move. 

They eat huddled around the fire, too. Joonmyun holds his bowl on his thighs, lets the heat bleed through silk and ramie and cotton to skin. Cups it after it's empty, too, collecting what residual warmth manages to bleed through. 

Greedier for the sun’s rays, the lingering warmth, the Crown Prince, Crown Princess, Grand General, military officers, and all their soldiers lounge by the campfire, turn their faces skyward, squinting into the vast, endless aching blue. 

They set up the wrestling ring near the campfire, too. Don’t strip their first layer of robes as they had last time.

Battalion Commander Wonshik, he once more drops an alarming number of young, ambitious, eager soldiers, grinning breathless and bright as one twists into the grass and vomits from exhaustion. He'd put up a decent fight, the Commander says, he was surprised by how long he’d managed to hold out.

And Joonmyun, he seizes his opportunity, when Wonshik challenges the Crown Prince and is rejected. The Crown Prince, laughing, waving dismissively with his jewel-encrusted hand, he asks instead for a _worthy_ opponent. 

And his Princess, his Bride is the most worthy opponent. They've been at war so long, after all. 

The Crown Prince scoffs out a laugh, curls his full lips with disdain. But the officers cheer, and he rises.

And if Joonmyun wants besting again, wants humiliating again, wants an audience for it again.

In the crudely-drawn wrestling ring, they meet, position, press, prepare. 

And it’s warm, chest to chest, hip to hip. Too warm. Unnerving. The Prince's lips graze Joonmyun's jaw, breath burning, solid body rippling with barely contained strength, but when he tugs this time, Joonmyun is anticipating it, bracing himself for it, fighting against it. 

Joonmyun shifts as the Crown Prince corrects his stance through the dismount. He shoves his leg between the Crown Prince's to upset his balance. He rolls his shoulders, too, uses the Crown Prince’s own strength, own weight, own momentum against him, pulls with all strength, his own weight, his own momentum. With all his anger and indignation and longing and hatred and despair. Pulls and pulls and pulls. 

And oh, even great, great mountains can fall. Even tigers. Even dragons. Even empires. 

And oh, the exhilarating, hot, hot rush of pride as the Crown Prince topples. And oh, the way that the Crown Prince—sweaty, breathless, startled, bested, humiliated, in front of audience, in front of his _men_ —blinks up at him. And oh, the way that someone—probably the Grand General—pronounces Joonmyun a fierce Crown Princess. The fiercest they’ve ever seen. 

Oh, yes, Regiment Commander Wonshik had been right. It was definitely worth it. More than worth it. All those aching, bruising, battering hours of training, for that singular, perfect, beautiful moment of triumph. 

Joonmyun loses on the rematch. Loses again when it's the Crown Prince favorite, the boy, the crier, his long, long body pressed distressingly tight to his own. 

But Joonmyun feels breathlessly light with his sole victory, nonetheless. 

And maybe, maybe, the stars had been right.

 

The winter continues to creep slow, slow, slow over the countryside, creeps and bleeds and steals at what beauty, what life is left in the country, the palace. 

The flowers die. The wind howls. The birds leave. The trees lose their golden leaves, become barren and twisted and skeletal and awful and dead. 

Alarmed, heartbroken, Joonmyun watches the jealous, greedy, cruel frost claim more and more, ruin more and more and more. 

And his tree. His beautiful tree, it’s gnarled and barren and skeletal and dying. And Joonmyun knows he’ll also die here. Trapped and shorn and hopeless and bled dry and brown and awful and unrecognizable here, too.

And it’s harder. And it hurts. Hurts even more.

 

Outside, the snow, it falls and falls and falls, cloaks the entire palace, entire city, entire country in endless, endless stretches of severe, blinding, aching, aching white. Colder, colder, colder.   
The servant girls have moved their bedding to the floor, and the floor heating, warm and cradling, it feels like a lover’s embrace, much more welcoming than the Crown Prince's has ever been. 

But the Crown Prince’s body is warm, and Joonmyun curls closer in the night, once his husband has drifted off, once Joonmyun allows himself tiny, tiny indulgences of his gnawing greed. But even the steady tattoo of his heartbeat, the deep, deep rumble of his every inhale and exhale, it isn’t enough. 

And in the morning, in those brief fleeting glances, brief fleeting touches, the silence between them is a blanket, thick and cold and isolating and cruel as the snow outside.

 

The frost crawls. The rime creeps. And the days do, too, creep and crawl and drag and burn and kill. 

It would be an awful winter, they had predicted. It’s become an awful winter as they had predicted. 

And it’s a bone deep, resounding, cruel, cruel chill. A cold so brutal, it burns. 

It prickles in his fingertips whenever he leaves the gilded cage of his palace chamber, painful and lingering, and he scrubs them against the fabric of his robes, heedless of the chafe, the sting. 

But visits to the market become more infrequent, shorter, less satisfying, more difficult. Joonmyun eats his dumplings still steaming, drinks his tea still boiling, pays with what coins he can gather in his trembling, chapped fingers. Stays only long enough to shiver through a handful of eavesdropped conversations, ache through a handful of jittery performances before trudging back home, the snow crunching beneath his feet as he shivers and stumbles and aches, trapped. 

His boots and clothing are soaked by the time he lumbers through his threshold. Chilled to the bone, he trembles even as he lands on the heated flooring, trembles even as he curls himself as small, small, small as possible. 

And it’s worse than when he was sequestered here before their marriage, worse because he’s so, so, so cold and so, so, so helpless and so, so, so alone. And even safe, sheltered, sequestered, the wind howls through his bones. 

Yearning, yearning, yearning for warmth, for comfort, for shelter, for love, Joonmyun’s lungs and bones and heart ache. 

But Joonmyun pretends, in spite of the fathoms of suffocating loneliness, that it’s fine, that he’s fine. Or that he will be soon enough. 

He has to be. 

He can be. 

He can. 

He survives. He copes. He lives.

 

He trains, still, tries still. Overhears conversations still. 

Preparations for the winter banquet, medicinal remedies to deal with the aches and pains of the winter chill, how their fingers bleed from all the blankets they must weave, how the King’s herbal tea makes their stomachs twist with nausea. How it’s been nearly a year since the Crown Princess came to their country. How in spite of how often he calls the Royal Consort, the Crown Prince still lacks an heir, still needs an heir. 

That afternoon, Joonmyun lingers, shivers. 

The Consorts pass by the palace garden in a procession of bright, beautiful silk, swishing whisper soft across the tiles. Ethereal and untouchable. 

Joohyun is among them. 

And even from across the pavilion, her smile—kind and understanding—feels like another embrace. The faintest flicker of warmth in the winter of his despair. His sole comfort. Fleeting, fleeting, fleeting. 

And he wonders, who among them, is her comfort, her love. And he feels lonelier, colder, colder, more terrified than he did while locked away in his detached palace. 

Trapped in his room and hollow and hopeless, he calls Joohyun just to hold her. Just to be held. Just enough warm to ease the chill in his bones.

 

At the family shrine that month, even as the wind howls outside the trembling columns of their shrine and even as his breath billows haunted and white and weak and even as his limbs tremble with fear and rage and longing, he presses closer to his husband’s side and and prays until his lips and the tips of his fingers are nearly blue. 

He can. He _can_. 

And at the winter solstice, he chokes past the red porridge as he curls tighter in his layers of perfumed silk. 

And the nights creep longer and longer and longer, crueler, crueler, crueler, the days shorter, colder, crueler, crueler, crueler, too. 

Joonmyun, stronger, stronger, stronger for surviving them. 

He can. He is.

 

The Doh perform another cleansing ritual—their last—as the year draws to a close, consult astronomers, magicians, shamans. 

The Crown Prince, healed, recovered, participates this time. His strong body sways with the ancient, blessed choreography, and it’s beautiful and it’s sacred and it’s captivating and it’s unsettling. And this is how they’d won. This is why’d they’d won. And this is why Joonmyun must stay. 

His husband, Crown Prince that he is, soldier, protector, tiger that he is, he spends hours in the family shrine afterwards, begging begging begging, and Joonmyun joins him, threads his fingers through his to ease the awful, unsettling shake. 

And blinking past the acrid sting of incense, past the terror, past the anger, past the tattered hope, clinging tight to the trembling column of his mountain, Joonmyun begs them again for their blessing, their guidance, too. At his side, the Crown Prince’s lip open in a silent, appeal, too, lips plush and red and darkly captivating. Joonmyun tears his eyes away, then clenches them shut, prays harder, harder, harder until he's also shaking. 

The Crown Prince’s fingers skim his wrist then higher, curl, squeeze, the touch searing—even more searing—and Joonmyun trembles before pulling his hand away, tugging the silk over his wrist to keep it from happening again as they trudge back to their shared, silent chambers.

 

In the piercing, bitter, angry cold, they have another public banquet. Their last for the year. Masked performances. Shivering dancers. Towers of food. Triumphant, bombastic drums, arrogant, ringing horns, sliced rice cake soup, and wine and wine and more wine. 

Joonmyun picks restlessly at the rolls of rice wrapped in seaweed, taps his fingers restlessly against the lacquered wooden table, scans restlessly over the swelling, swelling, trembling crowds of his subjects, his people, the Doh’s people. 

Afterwards, rising, raising his glass, setting his chin, the King promises to run the kingdom as they should. The Crown Prince rising, too, raising his glass, too, setting his chin, too, promises, too. With his beautiful bride as he should. 

They feed ancestors—their own—rice cakes, taro soup, wine, meat, vegetables, tangerines, bow before them. Joonmyun, too. 

And in the frigid, cruel, cruel winter air, they pray, and they hope. 

Dizzy and dazed and desperate, trembling with the sharp reverb of every echoing drum, every ringing horn, the Doh’s Crown Princess prays, too, even lets himself hope, too, hopes beyond hope as he shivers with every gust of the frost-laced, biting, biting, biting winter wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry for the very long wait between updates  
> there really is no excuse, so i won't give one
> 
> the next part, which is considerably longer gets posted tomorrow~


	6. Chapter 6

It’s cruel. Brutal. Very, very lonely, very, very long just as the shamans had predicted, just as the servant woman had relayed. 

But he survives it. They all do. 

And the Doh, they continue to prosper. 

And the days continue to pass.

 

Joonmyun had been sequestered, in training, for the Crown Prince's last birthday banquet, heard only what the wind carried, what the palace walls didn’t muffle. 

And it’s just as bombastic and proud and blatant and unsettling, the pomp, the ceremony, the luxury, the wealth, the power, the majesty. All to celebrate his husband, the man that would be king. 

They don’t ask for his opinion, his words, but the Crown Prince, he probably wouldn’t appreciate them, regardless. He’s already flushed dark, tense, tense, tense biting his lower lip, curlings his fingers around the handles of his throne. 

And his shoulders look small, if only for a moment, as he squirms beneath the attention, the scrutiny, uncomfortable as Joonmyun is, by the looks of it. And oh, the crushing weight of his duty, the crushing weight of his court mask, it must also burn and ache and itch. It must also make it hard to breathe. 

Oh, he must also suffer.

 

When the snow finally, finally begins to melt, the Grand General calls for a hunting party, insists that Joonmyun come once more. It’s for higher military officers, but regular soldiers, too, young boys hoping to impress the king to be, too. 

"No palanquins, no servants, Princess,” the Crown Prince warns, or maybe taunts. "No luxuries.”

No celadon-glazed bedpans, too, he assumes. No silkened sheets. 

Severe, austere as soldier’s lives are meant to be. Honest. Rough. Brutal, too. How the Crown Prince insists he likes it best. 

The men burden their horses with only their provisions, only the necessities. Hard bread, dried meat, rice, old wine. And armor and leather and blades and bows and arrows.

Joonmyun rides alongside them, the Crown Prince, his military officials, his soldiers. 

They’re less harsh, less exacting, less demanding, their gazes, their regard, their expectations, but they’re still Doh. And Joonmyun still isn’t. And it still hurts, even as he basks in the faint, faint warmth of the coming spring. 

But greedy for something new and wild and beautiful and raw, he drinks in the scattered blood-red of blooming flowers, the sleepy sun, the jagged horizon, breathes the sharp, stinging, mournful winter air, gorges himself on the exhilarating taste of brief, brief freedom. 

The Crown Prince, riding beside him, smiles often, laughs. And it’s surprisingly soft, the Crown Prince's real smile, surprisingly deep, the Crown Prince's real laugh. And boyish and bright and beautiful. And loud. And contagious. And lingering. And frequent. 

And even though he’s dressed in his vibrant, dragon gilded robes, even adorned with his crown, his jewels, there’s a softness there, an intimacy there that Joonmyun hasn’t ever seen before. 

There is magic in these fields. 

And with dirt on his embroidered robes, wisps of dark hair falling in his darker eyes, cheeks flushed, he looks free. Looks genuinely, unnervingly _happy_. 

The Crown Prince, his husband, he’s a doll that shimmers, that bleeds, brilliant and very nearly alive, nearly nearly real. 

And Joonmyun wonders if his duty and the stars and the palace also suffocate him with their demands, their expectations, their awful, awful scrutiny. If it also makes his skin and lungs and burn. If this—being in the fields like this—is the freest he’s felt in months. Here, surrounded by only trees and sky. 

The sympathy, the camaraderie, brief as it, it unsettles him, and Joonmyun squeezes tighter on his horse’s reins, blinks up at the sky, savors only his freedom, warm as the wintry sun on his skin.

 

One of the soldiers, he helps Joonmyun down. 

Another unpacks his gear. 

Another offers water, rice cakes, dried meat. 

And even without the luxury, even as austere as this is meant to be, Joonmyun is still the Crown Prince’s bride—his painted, pretty plaything of a bride, worth protecting and indulging if only for that. 

Joonmyun refuses any further help, insists that he alone can help the Crown Prince set up their shared tent, unpacking the silks, blankets, tent poles they had brought. 

The Crown Prince's crown catches in the sunlight, glitters bright as they work in relative silence. Amicable at the least. At peace for the moment, at least. 

Their hands brush, gazes brush, too. They don't speak. It doesn't hurt. 

The silence remains, even as the Crown Prince unloads the rest of their supplies. His extra arrows, extra bow. Swords. Daggers. The protective sutras, figurines that the Grand General insists he always carry.

Seated across from him, the Crown Prince pulls his sword free from its scabbard.   
The iron glints in the sunlight, dazzling, mesmerizing. Joonmyun stares, dazzled, mesmerized. 

“I have always preferred the fields to the palace," the Prince says, abruptly as he runs his fingers along the blade, slow, slow, slow. His fingers, strong and nimble and pale, they loop around the scrawling inscriptions, nails skating. Captivating. Joonmyun is captivating. "Always preferred soldiers to nobles." 

"Your Majesty?"

“Always. Even enemy soldiers. They are honest at least. Direct. They have the decency to use their swords. To press those swords to your throat. Not into your back." His wrist twists, fingers dance. The sunlight, it also dances. "Nobles, they are too calculating, too weak for that, I think. And it takes too long to know, too long before they’ve betrayed you. ”

Captivated by the elegant movement of his skin, the glint of iron, Joonmyun blinks, nods, swallows, understands. Thinks he understands. 

It hadn't been the Prince that has invited him. 

“Me?” he asks. "You think that I will."

_I have nursed you. I have prayed for you. I have done my duty, even when it hurt me. Even as it hurts me._

But the Crown Prince startles. He furrows his brows, purses his lips, slides his hand slow, slow, slow up the length of the blade, then twists just once more. The muscles in his wrist tense and release with the action. 

And oh, he could kill him if he wanted, could tear him open, could bleed him dry the way he’d done with the deer at the last hunting party. He's a tiger, after all. A dragon. A soldier. A Doh. His Prince. Could do it with honesty. Could do it directly. Would prefer it, it seems. 

Joonmyun shudders past the thought. 

“No.” The Crown Prince sheaths his sword, looks straight at him with his dark, dark eyes. “No, but I think I am still deciding with you.”

And he’s rising, leaving before Joonmyun has a chance to respond. 

_Why am I the enemy? What have I done to be your enemy?_

Unnerved, Joonmyun stands in the doorway of their tent as the Crown Prince meets with his men.

Blinking past the glittering sunlight, Joonmyun watches the other men work, too. One of the soldiers keeps knocking over one of the tent poles, dancing away when Crown Prince makes chase. 

The Crown Prince tosses his head back, raucous and real, before smacking the soldier soundly with his water buffalo horn bow. The boy laughs, arches on the tips of his toes, and the Crown Prince molds his fingers into the nape of his neck, squeezes. They’re both grinning then. 

And oh, it's the boy, the crier. 

He falls into the Crown Prince's arms like he's expecting him to hold him. 

The Crown Prince does.

 

The war games begin not long after. 

Horse races, archery contests, finally the hunt. 

Joonmyun is clumsy on his horse, clumsier yet with his bow. 

And the Crown Prince, annoyed, adjusts Joonmyun's hold on the bow twice before the Grand General takes over for him, laughing and only just the slightest bit patronizing. Fond, though, too, his laugh, his smile, his voice, his eyes. He curls his fingers around Joonmyun’s forearms, presses his temple to Joonmyun’s shoulder, speaks him through the aim, pull, release. He tells him that it's to be expected. These bows, they're much bigger, much heavier than the ones that the Just Officer has trained him with. One has to pull harder until the string is completely taut, aim just slightly higher to account for the wind. The other soldiers, see, they are also struggling. 

And Joonmyun, in spite of all of his training, because of his nerves, he hits three trees, nearly falls four times, watches more than aids in the final capture of the water buffalo, fox, wild pig, but he’s toasted at their campfire that night all the same, offered enough bitter, bitter alcohol to have his head spinning pleasantly.

He’s the fiercest Crown Princess they’ve ever _seen_ , the Grand General declares. The manliest, another quips. The most handsome. The strongest. 

Joonmyun laughs, brandishes his cup, too, drinks to his own health, then to the Crown Prince’s, then to the Doh Kingdom’s continued honor. 

Drunk, dazed, dizzy by the time they retire for the night, he crashes against the Crown Prince’s body, laughs, curls into him without further preamble, and the Crown Prince, drunk, too, laughs, curls, too. 

It feels like a dream. Soft and warm and gauzy and dizzy and comforting and carefree. 

Is fleeting, false as one, too. 

And he’s alone when he awakens, head pounding, stomach twisting with nausea.

He barely has a chance to stumble out of the tent before he's emptying his stomach in the crushed grass.

 

The soldier, the one the Crown Prince had smacked then embraced, the one that had cried so hard for him, he is an officer. Leads his own platoon of men. Oh Sehun. 

Sehunnie. Hunnie, as the Crown Prince teases from the end of the campfire that morning. His sweet, sleepy Hunnie. 

And Oh Sehun, Platoon Commander, decorated, armor-clad officer that he is, he curls forward to rest his chin on the Crown Prince's shoulder, winds around him like a vine as lesser soldiers prepare the food. He hums loudly in contentment when the Crown Prince laughs, holds. And Hunnie, he laughs, too, lets himself be held. 

Resentment prickles in the nape of Joonmyun's neck. 

He hates it. Hates that the Crown Prince is all he has. Hates that it isn't reciprocal. Hates that this Crown Prince with this disarmingly soft, special smile, this booming laugh, these soft eyes, this disheveled hair, this flushed skin is a Crown Prince that Joonmyun isn’t ever allowed to have, even though they had _promised_ it to him. Hates that the Crown Prince isn't miserable, isn't aching, isn't scarring, isn't bleeding like he is. Hates that it isn't fair. 

Hunnie curls around him at noon, too. At night also. 

Bold, entitled, demanding, opens his mouth in a little pout until the Crown Prince feeds him like a child. 

And it's so unbecoming, too, Joonmyun decides. Improper, he thinks, too.

Joonmyun watches the flickering flame-drenched shadows, ignores the deep, delighted timbre of the Crown Prince’s rare, sudden, rumbling laughter.

 

The younger boys, would-be soldiers, they scramble to prove themselves on the third day, cast desperate, starry-eyed glances in the Crown Prince’s or Grand General’s direction after every shot, every race. 

A young soldier, undecorated, unashamed one bows theatrically after hitting his target, dedicates it to the beautiful Crown Princess, then to the Kingdom, its glory. He fumbles when he misses but promises to restore the Crown Prince’s honor, promises to be a soldier worthy of such a noble, proud, skilled ruler. 

Joonmyun sees him later, aiming, firing, aiming, firing, aiming, firing as the others crowd around the fire, drinking straight from their glazed glass bottles of alcohol. Singing. Dancing. Laughing. Making merry.

Joonmyun, shamefully, stupidly jealous, joins. Tries to join.

And impossible as it is, he imagines he can hear the whizz of every single fired arrow, the low frustrated timbre of that young soldier's every groaned curse.

Alone once more that night, Joonmyun touches himself to the thought of rippling muscles, dark eyes, heavy lashes, lush lips, the deep, dark, dark timbre of rich groan. Heavier, heavier, heavier like the ringing growl of a dragon, a beast.

 

They ride back at morning, and Joonmyun tries to drink in all that he can. The way the jagged mountains melt into the horizon. The sting of the sun in his eyes. The rumble of his horse beneath his body. And the protest in his muscles and the sting of grass against his legs and the smell of dirt and trees and sweat. 

Tries to savor and remember and treasure before they're torn away from him once more at the palace gates.

 

The flowers bloom. The magpies sing. The bitter, jealous rime fades. And the sun shines. And the days heat and lengthen and pass. 

The banquets also come and pass. The monthly family rights, too. 

And the markets, they become an option once more. Joonmyun lingering to pass the awful, gnawing, empty stretches of time becomes an option once more. 

There is a troupe of traveling musicians one afternoon. A singer, a haunting singer among them. His voice is dark and deep and golden and disconcertingly beautiful, his dark, deep, golden, disconcertingly beautiful eyes glittering up at Joonmyun beneath his heavy eyelashes. He's achingly handsome, falsely demure, the corners of his lips curling upwards as he tells him that he needs a lover to cover him like the falling snow. Bathe him in fragant flowers until he can only smell his lover on his skin. Only know this love, this need. 

Joonmyun, unsettled, stumbles forward to throw several fistfuls of coins in his bag. 

It makes his bones ache, rattles and echoes through him long, long, long after that afternoon, the longing, the need, his own. 

Long familiar after all this time.

 

There is an attack. 

First at one of the public granaries. Then another at a medical house. Seemingly unrelated, seemingly negligible, but in contested areas with contesting nobles and their contesting standing armies. 

And it's a reminder. A reminder that they must remind. Must assert their authority. Must reform. Must destabilize. Must defend. Must crush those that would stand in the way. 

They must march South.

 

And it’s a subtle reminder, the marching army, the Grand General, the royal guards, the Crown Prince’s sword, dagger, war horses, bows, iron-plated armor. It’s another sweetened appeal to a royal authority, central power that demands absolute loyalty. 

The Doh Kingdom, it was forged on only the vaguest threat of blood and violence and destruction. The direct, honest, awful blood and violence and destruction of razed fields, burnt bodies, crumpled walls. 

But still a conquering army, it never really rests. A conquering king, he never really rests. A Crown Prince either. 

It’ll be a two week ride this time. A two week ride as it’d been for Joonmyun, too.

But without luxury again. No palanquins. Not servants. Just the Crown Prince. Just his officers. Just his men. Just Joonmyun as one of them. But finally, finally homeward bound.

 

Joonmyun, he gets his own horse once more. And they ride out in the early dawn, Joonmyun’s belly still warm from the rice porridge, green tea, bread, mind still hazy from interrupted sleep, but heart soaring soaring soaring at the sweet, sweet, sweet promise of home. 

The mountains become more severely beautiful, the grass greener, trees thicker, the road rougher. And the vastness of the endless sky above him, the vastness of the endless horizon before him, it’s a soothing kind of overwhelming, a bearable, awing kind of terror. 

The air thins and his lungs ache and his heart dances. Freedom. Brief, breathtaking, blinding freedom and home and home and home.

The soldiers’ voices, they ground him. The stinging sun. The earth. The bird songs. The quiet strength of the horse’s body beneath his own. His breathing. His pulse. Synced, seemingly, with Joonmyun’s. 

The Crown Prince’s tight, tight, tight mask, it slips away the further they ride. Body looser, voice bright, eyes glittering. 

Joonmyun’s mask, it also starts to slip away. His smile feels less forced, laughter less fake, movements, body free, free, free even if only for the moment.

 

They set up camp at noon. 

The Crown Prince, Joonmyun are to share a tent once more. Eat beside each other once more. Exist beside in each other in tense, tense silence once more. Prickle and bristle once more. 

But it's worth it. 

It will be worth it. 

As the men gather around the campfire that night, copper bowls, chopsticks, spoons balanced on their knees, one of the commanders uncorks bottles of bitter rice wine, and they insist on drinking towards the King’s glory, the Crown Prince’s future glory, the stars that predicted it all.

Joonmyun, he thanks them, too. 

But in their tent, alone, it is still so, so awkward, too oddly intimate and soft and uncomfortable, Joonmyun swallowing hard and looking away when the Crown Prince strips out of his clothing, unwinds his hair. It bleeds across the sheets, kisses against his sides when he slides beside him. Silken and black as the sky that had doomed them. 

And after months of marriage, it still too much. Too rare. Moments like these. Joonmyun, still too sensitized and disoriented and unsettled by them. Still doesn’t understand why the heavens would want this, why the people would scramble to see it done, too. 

He lays on his back to watch the stars, curse them once more for their predictions, their desires, their interference. Then the sleeping man beside him. For his kingdom to be. His power. His hardness. How often he cuts at Joonmyun’s skin. 

The guards stationed at their doors are warped, monstrous, make it even harder to sleep.

 

But he rides and he tries and he savors and he tries and he eats and he tries and he hopes and he tries.

 

The soldier that sits beside him the next night, he’s from South, too from the sea like Joonmyun, too, was swallowed up by the conquering army's dreams of unification, too. Remembers the glory that the heavens had once showed Joonmyun’s family, too. Remembers their majesty, their power, their wealth, their now-squandered greatness, too. Their music. Misses that the most, he says, actually. The music. 

He aches to hear it again, Crown Princess. That soulful, aching, bone-shattering poignance, Crown Princess. The way he feels the ocean inside him swell and swell with every dark, dark, mournful word. 

And oh, it’s something so private and beautiful and so wholly his, all he has, the untarnished memory of his old life. 

These men, the Doh’s men, they aren’t worthy. 

But oh, oh, oh, his eyes are full and heavy, and he’s missed it, Crown Princess. Missed it maybe nearly as much as Joonmyun has. 

And Joonmyun, he feels finally understood, sharing his hurt like this. 

Swallowing past the lump of thick, hot, shameful emotion in his throat, Joonmyun taps out a beat against his thigh, swallows again, parts his lips and sings and bleeds. 

And it's raw, splintering , achingly fragile—sudden, helpless, devastated tears thick in his throat, pricking his eyes but he sings harder. Of the violent and beautiful sea, of the mountains that scrape the sky jagged, and his aching, aching longing for his home. And his voice is cracking and his skin, too, and crying out and bleeding and fracturing and aching and aching and aching from longing. 

“Crown Princess,” someone breathes, and it’s so, so _wrong_ and it hurts so much. 

He rises abruptly, then, and the Crown Prince, ever concerned with decorum, reaches out to calm or to halt him or otherwise _control_ him. Joonmyun shakes his hand away with a hissed _Don’t Touch Me_ before stomping back to their tent. Like a child. An insolent, broken child. But _helpless_ to stop. Helpless to the clawing, clamoring pain. 

He cries there, harder and longer and heavier. Heaving, deep, deep sobs wracking his body until there is nothing left, until the sadness has wrung him dry. 

The Crown Prince, he doesn’t speak when he comes into the tent. He peels off his clothing layer by layer before crawling underneath the sheets. Audible, obvious, his lips open several times, like maybe he wants to—harangue or apologize or maybe explain—but they close in silence, every single time. 

But it’s a small mercy when he turns away, Joonmyun curling into the perfumed silks, breathing, breathing, breathing consciously through the raw wound of his stupid, searing longing. 

And try as he might to avoid it, to move past it, to cope through it, he’s still swallowed up in it, the gnawing, clawing darkness. And it feels proper, in a way, that they’d hurt him like this instead, half steps, half-suggestions, leave him utterly torn without ever having the decency to touch or tear or strike or scar or bleed or bruise or break—properly.

 

The southern soldier, his eyes prickle on Joonmyun’s skin the next morning, heavy, intentional, but he doesn’t approach again. 

And Joonmyun doesn’t know if he’s disappointed or grateful. Only that it hurts—the reminder, the gnawing ache for home. 

Only that he blames the Doh, their Crown Prince for that hurt. 

And he presses his face to his horse’s mane and breathes and breathes and breathes as they ride further, further, further, but closer, closer, closer to Joonmyun's real home. 

Bearing, bearing, bearing.

 

That evening, they hunt. They kill. 

The Crown Prince acquires a new wound. 

Shallow and ugly on the cut of his shoulder and hard to reach on his own, it oozes. He smarts. 

And it's his wife's duty, the Crown Prince informs by way of request, loosening his robe enough to curl his shoulder free, offering the skin but jerking when Joonmyun presses the poultice into his skin. 

The ugly, ugly scars stripping the skin quiver at his touch, quiver away. 

But Joonmyun appreciates the gift of his need, the gift of his usefulness, the gift of trust. 

They sleep face to face one more. And the Crown Prince drifts first. His face is soft—disarmingly so—in repose, all the hard, harsh lines softened to something much less hard, much less harsh, something more human, something more real. 

A dragon, a tiger that could be tamed, a mountain that could be eroded, a man that could be his. 

Another foolish, fleeting hope.

 

“I’ve had worse,” he tells him the next morning as Joonmyun cleans the dirty bindings, hisses in sympathy at the gnarled, stripped skin. 

But the blood still oozes. The skin still trembles, and he hisses, too, when Joonmyun presses down. 

"Then tell me about the worse," he says. His fingers skims the hem of the Prince's loosened robe, as he applies fresh bandages, winds and winds and winds. The Prince's tremor skates against his fingers, and he exhales shakily. 

Emboldened or captivated or dazed, Joonmyun traces over ribboned skin. 

"An arrow," the Crown Prince says. "From a campaign North." 

Joonmyun loops. The Crown Prince's neck rolls forward with a heavier tremor. "From a campaign South." 

A long, long gnarled scar. 

"Accompanying my father on a diplomatic mission at sea." 

The Prince shrugs off just a little bit more of his robe, presents just a little bit more skin. 

A puckered, curling dip. "My first night on the field. Someone paid a soldier from the West."

"Nobles," Joonmyun says. 

And the Prince is shrugging his robe back on, hiding his skin once more. "Nobles," he agrees. "I have had it worst with nobles."

 

They have a stone battle that morning after breakfast. Stationed on opposite sides of the arena, they hurtle insults then rocks and cracked, ceramic roof tiles. Joonmyun, the Crown Prince, other officers drink as they watch them battle until one side emerges bruised and battered and disheveled and bloodied and ultimately victorious. 

The sun hangs noon-high in the crisp spring air, glitters off the dents in their worn, dusty armor. And that same theatrical, overeager, undecorated, unashamed soldier from the last hunt, he wipes at the blood on his mouth with the back of his hand, bowing too low, staring too long, wanting too much, too obvious, and Joonmyun noon-sluggish loves the reckless excess of it. How it makes the other officers’ smiles tighten just so, how it makes the Grand General’s eyes sharpen. How it makes lazy, lazy desire curl through his body as he smiles back, just as excessively reckless and blatant and _wrong_.

And oh, this too could be his.

 

And that very same theatrical, over-eager, undecorated, unashamed, bold, bold soldier from before sits beside him that night around their campfire. 

Flushed with intoxication now, messy with it, loose tendrils of his dark hair falling in his glassy, oversized, black, black eyes, a thing that Joonmyun can touch, a thing that wants Joonmyun’s touch, too. 

And Joonmyun, he’s messy, too, face hot, robes dusty, hair and mouth and limbs and inhibitions lax, loose loose loose. He wants to touch, too, wants to be touched, too.

And he’s handsome and he's boyish and clumsy and painfully smitten and he’s there and receptive and warm and strong and real and Joonmyun is drunk and reckless. It feels so very right, and the eyes, the curious, maybe angry, maybe possessive eyes he feels on him, they hardly matter when this feels so real, feels so right. Hardly matters when there’s no question of his want. His foolish, improper, ill-advised, reckless, dangerous want. 

Joonmyun beckons him closer, feels powerful on the slow, awed away the soldier watches him, blinking blearily as he stares at his mouth. 

His hand bumbles up Joonmyun’s thigh, and Joonmyun presses his own hand over it, coaxes it higher, higher, higher. The calluses on his palms catch and drag as he skims his hand breathlessly higher. His nose bumps Joonmyun’s shoulder, and he exhales shakily against the worn leather. Deliriously, Joonmyun imagines he can feel the searing heat of it, blooming across his skin, and even more deliriously he wants more. 

“Your Highness,” he says. “Crown Princess.” 

Joonmyun scrapes his fingernails over the sensitive skin of his neck, and he giggles at the touch, then sighs softly, maybe moans, arches into it, then way from it. He drags his achingly pink lips across the collar of Joonmyun’s robes. 

Joonmyun's gone too far already, he knows, but this is nearly enough. The clumsy headiness of naked desire in this soldier's hesitant, trembling touch. The luster of his liquid, black, black eyes. The heat. The want. It’s nearly enough after so, so long, nearly too much after so, so long. 

Joonmyun is a desert parched, then flooded. 

And the soldier’s fingers knead restlessly into his waist, and the sound that Joonmyun releases is thankfully low, more a sigh than a moan. 

“My soldier,” Joonmyun says. And he shudders so pretty and _just_ for him. “Your name?” he says. And he skates his fingers lower, purposefully teasing, testing, taunting over the top of his spine, the ripple of his shoulder. He feels the tremble again, restless and helpless and so, so strong. The soldier quakes for him, hisses into his sternum. 

“Park Chanyeol,” he says. Then “The Crown Princess is so handsome. So…The song—”

Joonmyun laughs. And Park Chanyeol's thumb molds into his hipbone, and he’s _drowning_ in it, the storm of his desire—after so, so long. Chanyeol presses even harder. Repeats it when Joonmyun startles. Then once more. And it’s more a moan than a sigh then and damning and really too, too far. Really not far enough. 

“You’re handsome, too,” Joonmyun confesses into Chanyeol’s temple. “Strong. Big. Good, right?”

Another shudder, this one especially heavy, especially delicious. “Want to be. Want to—”

Joonmyun tilts his head back, twists his fingers into Chanyeol’s loosened hair, _tugs_ , touching as he shouldn’t, doing as he shouldn’t, wanting, wanting, wanting. 

And in his periphery he notes the prickle of the Crown Prince’s eyes—the prickle of their disapproval and petty, gratifying jealousy. But the Crown Prince, he’s touching as he shouldn’t, too, doing as he shouldn’t too, his lips pressed to Sehunnie’s temple, legs entangled. And he’s watching him, too, watching him still. 

Like a child, a petulant, entitled child, like a Crown Prince who has never been denied what he wants, never known what it's like to _want_. But there’s something heady, something powerful about his attention—his uninvited, undivided attention. He wants him that moment, want him enough. Wants Joonmyun to want only him. 

Joonmyun, empowered, emboldened, he tightens his arm around the curl of Chanyeol’s thin waist, throws his legs over Chanyeol’s lap, moans again—unmistakably— as Chanyeol’s lips skim his throat. 

If he pressed just the slightest bit harder, he’d be kissing him, and Joonmyun is dizzy at just the _prospect_. 

“Chanyeol,” he breathes. And the prickling, it’s a burn now, itching beneath his skin, curling tight and echoing through his veins. 

And Joonmyun pushes it just that tiny, tiny bit more, that tiny bit too much, arching into the lingering wet, wet heat of Chanyeol’s trembling mouth. 

It’s the breaking point, it seems. 

The Grand General’s voice is sharp, even through the haze of Joonmyun’s intoxication, the exhiliration of finally, finally requited desire. Tight and loud and _cutting_. A single, resounding “Soldier.” And Chanyeol quivers, then stiffens, finally stumbles away with a rushed, murmured apology. 

And it might be a play of shadows, the campfire’s flickering licks, might be a cruel trick of his own mind, but Joonmyun sees the distinct strain in the front of his pants, knows—undoubtedly—that he was the cause. And he groans and he wants and he resents and he meets the Grand General's dark, amused eyes. 

He collapses beside him unceremoniously with a tight, teasing laugh, throws an arm around his shoulder, laughs again but presses it into shoulder. “They always scatter, My Princess,” he says. "Always run away whenever reminded of their station.”

And their elbows, thighs graze. 

“I will stop Sehun, too. In due time. He has forgotten that the Crown Prince is no longer his for the taking. I will have to remind him.”

Something raw and vulnerable and sudden gnaws at his chest then. And it isn’t fair, that even this, the Crown Prince has already—

“He’s taken, already?” he asks. “The Crown Prince, Sehun, they have—already?”

And the Grand General’s hand grazes his arm, and the tilt of his eyelashes becomes something softer, something unnervingly tender. Understanding. Sympathetic. No, _pitying_. Awful, awful, awful. 

And that something grows and grows and grows, hollowing him out piece by piece until Joonmyun is nothing but the void of his own desperate, damning, desolating, despairing desire.

"Grand General?" he whispers. 

He swallows audibly, hesitates. And it's even worse. 

“I will not say that it meant nothing…that it means nothing, because it—does. But not—not how the Princess thinks and it is no longer Sehun's place, regardless. Not anymore,” he says softly, tenderly, understandingly, sympathetically. Pityingly. 

And the alcohol, in Joonmyun’s system maybe, the sudden, sharp, sharp fall after flying so, so high maybe, it has emotion choking through his body. Raw and dark and pathetically fragile. And he _hates_ it. 

“To touch a married man like that,” the General continues. "To give people the wrong idea of their relationship. It’s unbecoming. It’s improper. And it still means something. And it will mean something.”

He squeezes his thigh once, high as Chanyeol had dared, but completely different. Devoid of that heated, naked desire that had had Joonmyun fumbling foolishly for more, as brazen and hormonal and foolish as a boy.

And the General makes good on his word just two beats later, standing abruptly, twisting his fingers in Sehun’s robes and tugging him off the Crown Prince’s lap. 

Sehun cries out, staggers, but laughs good-naturedly a moment later, tips back to nuzzle into the General’s side instead. 

And Joonmyun feels so achingly alone. 

And even the slumbering brush of his husband’s body against his own in their shared tent, shared bed, even that makes it hurt more.

 

The next morning, as dawn bleeds across the endless, endless sky, it’s that same soldier, overeager, clumsy, disheveled, sleepy, _Chanyeol_ washing clothes in the river, draping robes over the cloth smoothing board, beating them clean.

A punishment. 

He’d been punished by the Grand General last night, too, Joonmyun knows, made to sleep on the ground for his impropriety. For drinking too much and forgetting his station. 

But he bites his lower lip as he smiles up at him, so brilliant still, so bright, so boyishly beautiful still. He bows his head shyly as he whispers about how handsome His Highness looks in the morning. Radiant as the morning sun. 

And improper as it is, unbecoming as it is, wrong as it is, there’s still that ache of desire as he returns his smile.

 

Sehun, military officer that he is, he’s been punished, too, Joonmyun notes, as they settle around the bubbling pot of rice porridge. Sehun’s sleeves are rolled up to his sharp, pink elbows as he stirs and stirs and stirs. A foot soldier’s duty, Joonmyun knows.

Sehun doesn’t smile when he spots Joonmyun, like Chanyeol had. He wrinkles his nose in a scowl instead, stirs faster, harder, biting his lip as if to keep from saying something he shouldn’t. He only cracks when the Crown Prince pats his back in greeting, his entire face dimpling with fond affection. 

And no, it wasn’t just the alcohol, wasn’t just the too heady spike and fall in emotions. 

Joonmyun, he still resents.

 

After breakfast, as they collapse their tents, dress their soldiers, Joonmyun wanders further out into the forest, alone, lonely but free. He scrapes his palms raw against the trees, relishes and treasures and clings to what he can if only for the moment. Sneaks back to their tents just in time.

 

He counts his horse's breaths, the soldiers flanking his side, the soldiers flanking his husband, the tents they erect when they stop at noon. Then the bows they draw, the quivers of arrows they stack, the lotuses on their sheets as he retires to his tent. 

Then the curse words, then the rematches, then the distinct bark of the Crown Prince's every scoff, every laugh. 

Then the soldiers on the Crown Prince's map. Then the rivers. Then his bows. Then his arrows. Then his daggers. 

The Crown Prince keeps the largest in a gold case, and Joonmyun traces the fine engraving on the edges. A dragon, four-clawed. They'll add another when he is King, when Joonmyun his Queen. 

The handle is jade, beautiful, and he turns it over and over and over in his hand, absent and amazed, mesmerized. 

He jerks when he feels fingers curl around his wrist. Feels breath sear against his temple. 

Startled, he spins, and the Crown Prince's eyes are also searing. 

He does not pull his weapon free like Joonmyun is expecting, drags it to his own throat instead. He swallows heavily, and Joonmyun watches the way his lips part, throat shifts with the movement. 

“Here,” he says, sliding the blade with just just just enough pressure to dimple but not break the skin. His voice is steady, but his hand trembles. Then he drags so, so, so slow to trace across his throat. “Here if you want to be quick, efficient.”

Another swallow, and he skims it over the aged leather and worn iron at his chest. Tapping once, twice. An audible clink. 

"Here, if you want it to be messy.”

A shuddery exhale, as he guides Joonmyun’s fingers down, down, down, over the tapered dip of his belly. His voice is a barely audible whisper. 

“Here, to make me suffer.” 

And lower still over his crotch. Joonmyun's fingers are trembling now, too. 

“And here, to kill my line of descendants. Doom the Crown.” 

His grip slackens just as Joonmyun’s does, and the dagger clatters to the ground. Neither make to pick it up, neither make to move at all. 

This close, Joonmyun can see the shadow cast by each individual eyelash, smell the musk of his aged armor, nearly _taste_ the pulse of his racing heartbeat. 

Though neither speak, neither move, neither breathe. 

His eyes flicker to Joonmyun’s face, then back to the knife at his feet. 

“You’ve had more than enough chances, Princess," he says finally. “You could have done it months ago if you were going to, but I’d still…I’d rather you kill me like this. Face to face. If you’re going to, then have the decency to do it like this." _He does not want any more scars on his back_. "Do you understand?”

“I understand," Joonmyun finally says, and the Crown Prince smiles. Not the ugly, awful one he wears at banquets, not the soft, dimpled one he wears for his men, but something unsettlingly sharp and in between.

He pulls finally, mercifully, away. 

His hands are shaking still when he slides their tent open.

Joonmyun's are, too, so badly he knocks over the other weapons on their table, an oil lamp, the game pieces for baduk.

 

At lunch, Joonmyun, nauseous still from the morning’s shaky terrain, his horse’s shaky trot, unsettled from their conversation, he picks at the shrimp in his porridge, pushes them to the edge of his bowl, picks them apart with his chopsticks. 

And nauseous still, he plants himself by the tents, watches the Doh men. How they wander to canvas the terraine then to feed the horses then to hunt for small game. How they laugh and talk and fight and embrace and cook. 

At dinner that night, the Crown Prince, seated across from him, grimaces as he hands over Joonmyun’s bowl. 

And warmth and something startlingly like affection burns and curls and tightens along the nape of his neck. Confusion, too. Anxiety, too. 

“Thank you,” he says, and the Crown Prince nods in acknowledgement. 

Joonmyun swirls his spoon in the plain porridge feels the heat and weight of the Crown Prince’s eyes on him as he eats, smiles purposefully in response even as the porridge burns his tongue, his throat.

 

Theirs is a meandering path, looping through foreign forests, weaving through hills, winding through mountains. 

And the trees at the foot of this mountain, edge of this forest, are gnarled, and the wind echoes like ghosts howling and shadows stretch and twist like monsters. 

“There are monsters in these woods,” the Crown Prince informs him as he bends forward to hammer their tent poles into place. “Grand General insists that he isn’t worried, but he’s made us carry protective amulets. We’ve blessed the tents, too. There is no need to worry, Crown Princess.” 

But they have settled near the very edge of the forest, as if tempting them, taunting them, Joonmyun decides, as if daring them. 

And there are monsters in every flickering shadow, monsters in every rattle of wind. Monsters always at the very edge of his periphery. And Joonmyun is bristling with the unsettling awareness of his own vulnerability, the utter frailty of his life. Unpleasant, it prickles through his limbs.

“Are you afraid, Princess?” And Joonmyun ignores the honeyed barb, but turns just once more, just to make sure. As the men around him raise their trembling fingers in drunken revelry. 

“We left a carcass to appease them,” the Crown Prince, says following the line of Joonmyun’s gaze. “We have blessed our campsite.” 

“But why did we stop here?” he whispers back. “If we know, why did we stop?” 

“It’s a rite of passage of sorts. A chance for the soldiers to prove their bravery.” 

_You value their pride over their lives_ , he nearly says, bites his lip hard to keep from saying. _Don’t care that they might be taken, that some might be so recklessly bold as to actively taunt them_. 

He considers the argument, but swallows it whole instead, twists his fingers into the looping swirl of a lotus leaf on his knee. 

“Minseok hyung has impressed upon them the danger. But he won’t deprive them the experience. It’s a matter of pride. It’s about honor. It’s to show they are men.” 

Crown Prince Kyungsoo shifts, tugs at the hem of his sleeve, offers his wrist. It’s white, thin, long, the scar, delicate against his skin. Negligible compared to the others he's seen.

“It had claws, whatever it was.” 

And Joonmyun’s hands bumble forward of their own accord, trace higher, just beneath the silk to feel the way it puckers, loops to even past his elbow, and the Crown Prince exhales, pulls slowly away. Joonmyun watches the way the fire dances across the contours of his wrist. He itches inexplicably to touch again. 

“Did the Grand General not impress upon you the danger?” he tries, after a beat. 

Crown Prince Kyungsoo’s lips quirk, an almost smile. “Imagine the shame of being a military commander and unable to face some monsters the woods.” He rights his sleeve, squares his shoulders, smiles up at him. Full now. Real now. The moonlight caresses the curled corners of his full lips, dances over the tilt of his crinkled eyes. “I will protect you,” he says, honeyed again, a half-barb again. “It’s my duty as your husband, as the future king. And it’s about time you became a true Doh man.”

 

The wind howls through the trees, rattles through the posts of his tent, and Joonmyun turns towards the warm, solid strength of Crown Prince Kyungsoo’s body at his side. In the dark, Joonmyun can almost make out the shape of his cheek, can infer the disparaging shape of his smirk. 

“You’re afraid, Princess,” he says. 

_Am I not allowed to be_ , he swallows. “I am.” 

“I promised I would protect you. You have my word.”

"And what if they hurt you, too? What if they kill you first? What then?"

Crown Prince Kyungsoo laughs, soft but deep. His hands bumble forward in the darkness, and Joonmyun squeezes his wrists—hard. Feels the steady beat of his pulse, the warmth of the skin, the curl of his scar. 

“I will fight to death for my kingdom’s sake. For your honor, Princess. My beautiful bride." And it’s a jest, but there’s less malice in it, he thinks, even as he breathes past the unease, apprehension, indignation twisting in his gut. 

He’s promising to care for him, he thinks. 

“You’re a Doh man. You are mine,” Crown Prince Kyungsoo says. “There’s nothing more sacred to me than my bond with my men.” 

Joonmyun relaxes his hold just the slightest but clings still, needs until his eyelids are heavy, his body less tight with terror

 

The next day, they ride around another mountain, but stop far enough away. 

The men, they’ve proven their bravery. And it has been more than enough.

 

Joonmyun bathes alone by the river that morning, rushed, shivering in water that it’s still just too cold. His feet scrape against the jagged rocks, and he quivers away from a few too curious fish as he scrubs himself pink and worthy. 

On his return, he passes the Crown Prince. He’s flanked by Sehunnie, who smiles at him over the Crown Prince’s shoulder, mocking or maybe genuine. His robes are loosened enough to expose the smooth curl of his pale shoulder. Joonmyun drops his gaze, stumbles back to camp, hates the echoing sound of their laughter.

 

Seated across from him, bold and reckless and wrong by him, Chanyeol is skittish, shy, reserved at lunch. But he smiles at him still, warm and too fond still, and Joonmyun’s insides twist with the reckless desire he feels—still. 

Chanyeol, lovesick and handsome and still much much much too bold, murmurs about how he hopes the Crown Princess eats especially well. He always makes everything look so delicious. Cheeks warm, Joonmyun murmurs back that he will.

Their fingers grazes, gazes lock, but it’s Joonmyun that pulls away. 

He eats his rice faster, faster, faster. Likes the way it burns going down. 

But likes too much still the weight of Chanyeol’s eyes. The weight of the Crown Prince’s, Platoon Commander’s, Grand General’s, too when they repeat the process at dinner, through the ride the next morning, at breakfast, too. 

Too bold, too reckless, but not bold and reckless enough.

 

“I used to ask the others,” the Crown Prince starts by way of greeting when Joonmyun steps through the tent that afternoon after lunch. He offers that same jade-crusted dagger, hilt-side first. "I would do it myself if I could," he continues when Joonmyun blinks, swallows. And he takes the dagger, steps closer. The sunlight haloes the Crown Prince's proud, regal, guarded face. "I cannot get that close to the skin without cutting myself, and the mirrors are not—And I cannot ask the others."

And he tips his head back, prone, vulnerable, helpless—if only for the moment, if only because he has no other choice. He used to ask the others. He cannot ask the others. 

"Because it’s unbecoming,” Joonmyun guesses, and he slides his hand shakily over the side of his husband's head, curls his fingers in the loose strands of his soft, dark locks. The Crown Prince's eyes on him are heavy and dark and just the slightest bit unsettling as Joonmyun thumbs at the loose strands of his top knot. And there’s a fine, fine tremble to his fine, fine skin as Joonmyun skims the blade lengthwise down his throat. Dry. Chafing. Against the grain. Wrong. Cruel.

The Crown Prince doesn't say anything. Just tugs his lower lip between his teeth, swallows, melts, submits, but his fingers curl around Joonmyun’s wrist, coax him into pressing just the slightest bit harder. His breathing is helplessly shaky, helplessly labored, but he remains otherwise perfectly, perfectly still. And the varnished hilt scrapes and burns against Joonmyun's skin.

_Here_ , he remembers. Then the other places. Where it could be messier, crueler, faster, slower if he so pleased. But as long as it was honest. As long as it was straightforward. As long as it was face to face. With dignity. As long as the the Prince wasn't left with more scars on his back. 

And Joonmyun's breathing is helplessly shaky, helplessly labored, too.

He gropes blindly for the cloth that the Crown Prince's set aside, watches the flutter of his impossibly dark eyelashes as he lathers it over his throat, presses the blade again. 

Joonmyun scrapes, and the Crown Prince's fingers tighten almost imperceptibly, then pull finally away. His hand curls around his own thigh, clenching and unclenching rhythmically.

And Joonmyun drags, drags, drags then brushes the fine, dark hair away with the fine, embroidered cloth that the Crown Prince had handed him. Once, twice, thrice.

“So I’ve heard,” he exhales, closes his eyes. “I was not the only one," he continues. "I have not been the only one.”

Joonmyun, he doesn't take the bait. Shaves, brushes, shaves, brushes. Careful, slow, silent, breathing consciously through the strange emotion clawing up his throat. 

The Crown Prince’s throat, though, it seems to vibrate with an aborted, smothered emotion, too. 

And the water droplets trickle down his skin, darken his robes as Joonmyun works and works and works.

And whatever conversation might have been had loses itself in the whisper of metal and ramie cloth on wet, goosebumped skin.

There’s a peace to that silence, too. 

And it’s a gift.

 

That night, the Crown Prince falls asleep first, and Joonmyun watches him in the flickering candlelight, sees all the little spots on his chin and throat along his jawline that he had missed, finds himself counting the individual hairs as he struggles to make sense of them, of this, struggles to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again for your patience


	7. Chapter 7

Shaken, shaking, Joonmyun stumbles out of the tent as dawn paints over the horizon, as the earliest risers, least decorated soldiers prepare for the day. 

And feeding horses, boiling porridge and tea, washing pots, filling their water skins, shining their armor, consulting their maps, beating dirty robes clean, they’re too busy to notice as Joonmyun, dressed still in his sleeping robes, bumbles towards the river. 

The water is icy against his overheated skin, and he hisses at the contact, bends forward to splash it on his face, scrub it more insistently into his skin. Then again and again and again, sputtering and blinking past the cutting chill. 

Still shaken, shaking, he blinks into the jagged horizon, breathes in the sharp, thin, frost-laced air. 

He finds more soldiers there. Finds his soldier there, sleep-rumbled and wild-haired and bathed in gold. A long, lean lithe line, waist deep in water, he curls forward to pull the fish nets to the shore. 

His soldier startles when he sees him but bows but smiles but shines so bright as he abandons his nets to stumble and splash his way closer. 

Drenched, his robes cling to his skin, curl around the long, lean, lithe lines of his body. And Joonmyun can see the distinct curve of every muscle as he bends forward, bites his lower lip in quiet greeting. 

His smile trembles. Hands, too. Soft and shy and sweet in the early kiss of dawn. He reaches out for him but hovers just shy of it, purposeful and yearning. Improper. 

And oh, the Crown Princess' smile puts the sun to shame. It's such a blessing to see. Such a gift. 

He has a gift for him, too. Just something small he had found. Something that reminded him of the Princess. Something to make the Princess smile just for him and put the sun to shame. 

And oh, it is so, so improper. 

It’s a satchel of crushed flowers. Fragrant. Soft to the touch.

Their fingers brush. 

And Joonmyun's hands and smile tremble, too. Heart, too. He squeezes the worn silk between his fingers. 

“My sister is a concubine,” his soldier says. "I know which flowers are best. I crushed them for you." 

And Joonmyun’s neck is warm, his soldier's eyes, too. 

“I am not meant to have luxuries,” he says, exhaling, curling into the shy, shy, soft, sweet skim of fingers at his wrist, shuddering at them. “The Doh men do not have such luxuries.” And his soldier only grins up at him, so boyish and bold and bright, putting the sun to shame, too. And it’s dangerous and it’s improper and it’s exhilarating. 

“But the Princess deserves them.”

"You killed flowers for me, soldier," he breathes. "Chanyeol."

_You disobeyed orders for me, Chanyeol. You could be punished for me, Chanyeol_. 

His soldier dips his head, and his hair falls across his forehead. And he’s so handsome and so young, and he wants him so earnestly, so recklessly, and it’s so heady. “With great honor, Princess."

And Joonmyun has to step away. Has to. Has to.

But he folds his flowers into his robes, traces over the embroidered silk during breakfast, cradling even as the later risers, more decorated soldiers rouse. Holding at breakfast, after, too. As they pack up their camp. As they climb onto their horses. As they ride further further further, closer closer closer, stop at mid day again near a hot spring. Even as they hunt and eat and pause to stare—at least in Crown Princess Joonmyun’s case— _stare_ at the harsh, unsettlingly gorgeous terrain. 

He holds. He clings. He treasures. 

And it’s a beauty so severe, so startling, it makes Joonmyun’s skin prickle. 

The mountains scrape the sky, climb impossibly higher, higher, higher. And the sky reflects the water, and the water reflects the sky. And it’s easy to believe in that moment that it’s a matter of harmony, of balance, of order, of fate, easiest to see why this was meant to be, broken and hollowed out as it leaves him feeling.

And Joonmyun crushes his forbidden, crushed flowers smaller, smaller, smaller.

 

Regal, highest ranking, the Crown Prince and Joonmyun head towards the hot springs first that day. And Joonmyun pauses at the water’s edge, fingers curled on the dusty ends of his robes, lip catching between his teeth, as he breathes consciously through the rush of unbidden anxiety and dread.

They have never— _he_ has never—

Joonmyun can hear it when his clothing falls piece by piece to the soft earth. The thud of his leather shoes, the clink of his silver-tipped belt, finally the whisper of his silken pants, silken robes.

And Joonmyun hesitates with his fingers clutched around the silk material at his own thighs.

He hears it also when the Crown Prince goes into the water. Hears the splash, then his long, long, satisfied sigh.

Joonmyun turns then. And the Prince's skin—his pale, smooth, smooth skin—it’s stripped and marked and knotted from dozens of dark, deep, long, ugly, ugly scars. More, much, much more than Joonmyun had been allowed to see, much, much more than he had ever imagined. 

He's mottled, gnarled as his old tree.

And Joonmyun bumbles mindlessly, purposelessly forward, and his fingers hesitate, curl into fists to avoid the sudden, foolish desire to skip over the raised skin. 

“Your back,” Joonmyun breathes, and the Prince’s scoff is amused, tight, maybe, maybe breathless.

“I am a soldier," he says. _A mountain. A tiger. A dragon. A beast_.

And he tips his head back. His long black hair brushes the smooth stones behind him. He raises his arm above his head, exposing another long, garish scar on his side, as he curls his fingers in a lazy, half-patronizing beckoning gesture. The way he's seen him summon soldier boys at meal times, the way he's seen him call servant girls. 

“These are to be expected," he continues. 

Joonmyun shakes his head, realizes that the Prince cannot see, and vocalizes his protest instead. His father was a soldier. His uncles, too. Scars like this, they meant—Betrayal. Or they meant—

"I did not retreat," the Prince cuts in, his back stiffening, every distinct muscle rippling then locking. "I have never run from a fair fight. But people do not usually fight fair. Not when they know they would lose if they did. Not when they have what you most want."

_I have always preferred the fields to the palace. Always preferred soldiers to nobles_. 

And the Prince beckons him forward again.

Joonmyun stumbles slightly forward, but doesn't strip. He touches the Prince instead, hesitant, gentle, apologetic, and the skin ripples with goosebumps. But neither of them pull away. 

“Power?” Joonmyun tries, and the Prince nods so, so slow, so, so deliberate that Joonmyun can see every distinct muscle in his throat shift with the movement. It’s captivating and unnerving. And Joonmyun can’t look away.

Joonmyun’s fingers skip between his shoulder blades, over the hollow of his throat before falling away. The Crown Prince shudders, swallows, exhales. 

_Here_ , Joonmyun remembers. He shudders, too, swallows, too, exhales, too. _I don’t want more scars on my back_ , he remembers. _I’m still deciding with you_ , he remembers.

"It is easier on the battlefield,” the Prince breathes. "When I am not wearing my crown or my dragon robe or my _title_. Easier when you are a soldier, not a Crown Prince. Better when you are helpless. When you are small. When you do not matter. Easier when you are a shrimp, not a whale."

_When you are not a conquering kingdom. When you are not a kingdom that's been conquered_

“But we were never the shrimp," Joonmyun says. "Our fathers are kings. We were never small. We were never really helpless. We have always mattered. We have always influenced others with our whims," Joonmyun continues, and the Prince nods but then shakes his head. He sighs long and low and frustrated. 

“I wonder when I will start to feel it,” he says. “I wonder if even when I’m King…Wonder if I will ever be able to stop watching my back.” He sighs, shakes his head again—harder, and the movement makes the water ripple, break. "Get in the water already," he says. 

Tumbling out of his clothing, Joonmyun does, melting into the the hot, hot embrace of water at his sides with a long, low groan. 

And they’re face to face, and Joonmyun can see more scars across his front, too. Soldier’s scars, combat scars, as they should be, where they should be. On his shoulders, across his chest, painted across his arms, his ribs, his waist. 

Joonmyun, he reaches out again, and the Prince lets him touch those, too. Oddly reverent and apologetic again as he traces all the ugly puckered stripes. Joonmyun’s palms tremble and tingle before finally falling away. 

He can feel the Prince's eyes on him. Unnervingly heavy as they always are. Sharp, too. Wary. Fathomless pools of hidden, damned, private emotion. Joonmyun watches the muscles beneath his pale, glistening, scarred skin bunch and release as he inhales and exhales. 

Tense, tense, tense, too, too, too much. 

He can't. He won't. 

Remembering the soldier’s gift, Joonmyun gropes back for the satchel, scatters the crushed flowers across the steaming water as the Crown Prince watches him. 

"For our skin,” he clarifies. “Like we have at the palace."

“You picked these yourself?” he scoffs.

“They were a gift.” 

The Prince blinks. His lips twist at the corner, very nearly a sneer. He scoffs once more. 

“You accept gifts like a child, then.” 

And he slaps the flower petals away.

Joonmyun bites his lip to keep from responding. Watches and waits for the tension to bleed out slow, slow, slow. 

“We should wash,” the Crown Prince says, finally. “The others are waiting for their turn.” 

His hand hesitates on Joonmyun's shoulder—they have, he has never—the washcloth trembling in his grip, before Joonmyun nods silently in assent. 

It grazes absently, sweeping through the water droplets that have already collected on his sternum before actually scrubbing the dirt on his skin. His throat, his chest, his stomach, his back. 

Joonmyun returns the favor, pays attention to the especially hard to reach places. 

They wash their thighs, backsides, legs on their own. 

In fragile, fragile, silence once more.

At peace once more, if only for the moment. 

But dinner is tense, silent, and his sleep is fitful, nonetheless.

 

The next morning, they ride out early, loop around another river. 

They break for a hunt near a forest. Celebrate with an impromptu archery contest. Wrestle to pass even more time, shivering in their still-heavy layers, huddling afterwards for warmth, before eating their spoils. 

Belly heavy with meat, mind hazy with too many sips of bitter wine, Joonmyun sways, grazes, settles, touches, wants.

The Crown Prince’s fingers curl in warning around his elbow. 

And there’s blood beneath his fingernails, from the hunt. A ring of red against the silk. His hands had been drenched in it earlier, his robes, too, before he’d changed, washed. Even then, there’s a telltale ring of red still. Soldiers hands, his husband’s. Rough, cruel, best suited for killing, for arresting, for controlling, for hurting, battle-tested, battle-worn. 

Joonmyun shuffles uncomfortably, tugs himself free. His elbow knocks against the blown glass pommel of his husband’s sword. For killing, for arresting, for controlling, for hurting, too, battle-tested, battle-worn. 

And he traces absently over the jewels, skips over fine engraving. 

"They’re holy inscriptions," the Crown Prince says, curling his fingers around Joonmyun’s wrist, burning, burning, before pulling it away. In his periphery, his eyes are too bright, his lips shiny and stained red with wine, curled in something shy of a smile. 

"To protect or to attack?"

"Both. A good soldier aims to do both." The Crown Prince pauses, swallows, drops his voice. “I am not attacking right now, fellow shrimp.” 

And his face is haloed golden in the late afternoon light, handsome and regal, his voice disconcertingly sincere.

 

But that night, around the campfire, after dinner, as Joonmyun lingers by the fire, watches it die, entranced, silent, the Crown Prince drops beside him, voice pitched low, strained. A warning. “There will be another banquet after we return," he informs him. "A Spring celebration.” 

And Joonmyun, he already knows. This is an attack. 

“Are you warning me?”

At Joonmyun’s side, the Prince’s shoulders tense. And in his periphery, his lips purse, jaw tenses. “Yes,” he says. 

“I will behave.” 

“That’s all the Doh ask.” 

Joonmyun bristles. He hasn’t since— 

“Also to be beautiful, also to be grateful, also to forget that I was ever anything but the Doh Kingdom’s _property_. But I suppose you consider all of that behaving.”

“I do.” A pause. The click of his jaw. "You think you are the only one the Doh have tried to break? You think you are somehow special for it?"

And he raises an eyebrow, imperious and infuriating. Attacking, attacking. 

Irritation burns through him, and Joonmyun misses the moments when they weren’t speaking, when the Crown Prince couldn’t hurt him with his words. 

"And you think that justifies the way you have treated me. But it does not and you know it. It was not the same for you, Your _Highness_. It is _not_ the same for you. You are one of them. Even if they are trying to tear you into this proper prince, you are one of them. You are theirs. And you—you have your soldiers. You have your friends. I have _nothing_."

“I know,” he says after a beat. “I know.” His face twists in a grimace. “I am sorry.” 

Joonmyun chokes on a scoff, and indignation prickles along the nape of his neck, rises hot through his chest. And it doesn't matter if he claims to know, doesn't matter when he's hurt him over and over and over again. 

"You always—the Doh but you _especially_ —I do not know how you can bear it. I do not know how anyone can. The pomp, the ceremony, the falseness, the pageantry, the way that everyone just scrutinizes your every move.”

“That is any kingdom,” the Crown Prince says, but his voice is softer, almost apologetic. “You cannot say that your kingdom was not the same. That they did not also hurt others.”

And they were, and they did, but not for him, not to him. And he _misses_ them—his people, his family. The warmth, the pride in their regard. 

Joonmyun swallows once, twice. “It does not feel like love here. Does not feel like respect. They do not care for my feelings. They do not care for my wants. They only care for what I am to you. To the kingdom. And everyone—everyone wants me to fall in line and be grateful and pretty and well-behaved, but they want me to fail, too.” Joonmyun exhales, chokes on another scoff. Swallows, swallows, swallows. “I do not know how you can bear it,” he repeats. 

The silence stretches and stretches and stretches. 

"It is hard to breath sometimes. In front of all those people. It is impossible."

The Crown Prince furrows his brows, but nods. Fierce, curt. 

"It makes my skin, my heart, makes my entire body—"

He nods again, even fiercer. His jaw is tense, sharp and regal enough to cut. 

“I do not know how anyone can bear it.” 

“I am often away,” the Crown Prince concedes, upsetting a tiny cloud of dust as he kicks. “I find that that helps.”

_You have denied me that luxury,_ he nearly hisses. 

His husband’s hand, it hovers near his knee but settles instead on the wood beside it. His hand clenches, bruised knuckles straining. 

And there is an almost comfort in that not touch, the vague vague heat of his body instead.

 

They ride at dawn again. 

The sky spills onto the land, fog licks over the horizon, and it blankets the mountains a haunting white. Thick and heavy, it kisses against his skin. 

Joonmyun turns his face into it as he squints past the jagged, snown-laden mountains, inhales deep and greedy and imagines he can nearly _taste_ the sea, taste his home.

Soaring with it, he laughs with the others as they ride, joins in their teasing—the Battalion Commander's stained robes, the Company Commander's temperamental horse, the Grand General's runaway helmet—smiles purposefully in his husband's direction, too. At lunch, at the campfire as they prepare dinner. 

He soars and soars and soars. 

Even higher as his soldier plops down across from him and smiles at him, batting his eyelashes, bashful but bold and boyish and beautiful and so very perilously improper and ill-advised and dangerous.

The Crown Prince frowns, shuffles just just just slightly closer, enough to jostle Joonmyun, enough to have his soldier startling, dropping his beautiful smile, his beautiful gaze, jerking away.

Joonmyun hates it, hates him—for denying him this. 

And oh, the Crown Prince isn’t like him, isn’t human like him. Doesn’t feel, doesn’t need. Doesn’t understand what it’s like to have your skin _scream_ from longing. No, he’s a child that finds sudden value in the doll he’d tossed away, but only because someone else want to play with it now, but only because he feels entitled to affection he has done nothing to earn. 

And only because this soldier wants him. 

And now, there's a soldier that wants him even though it’s forbidden. A soldier that doesn’t want him even though it’s mandated. 

The knowledge of it is heady, a rush, a slow crawl of prickling heat through his veins. 

“Do not flirt with the soldiers,” the Crown Prince hisses in warning, waving dismissively with a slow, slow curl of his hand.

And thought they haven't eaten, though they mean to eat, the other soldiers they drop their smiles, drop gazes, too, fall away, too. And Joonmyun hates him even more for it, hums dismissively as the Crown Prince repeats his command. 

“Do not give them false hope.”

“What gave you the impression that it was false hope?” 

His jaw clenches, fists tighten. There is no residual blood on his hands tonight, but they are still strong and still cruel and still angry, still made for killing and arresting and hurting, and oh, it’s so dizzyingly gratifying to grate at him, to tease and hurt and claw at him as the Crown Prince so seldom has the decency to do to him, too. 

An ocean of anger bubbles and brews and breaks. 

_Toss me away. Break me. Ruin me. Touch me_. 

“He will be stripped of his title if he indulges, Princess. He will be ruined.” 

“But not I.”

“Is that what you want?”

“You shouldn’t flirt wth your soldiers either,” he bites back. "Should make sure you do not ruin them either."

“You dare compare what I—” He laughs, disdainful, disbelieving, speaks icy and low. “What I have with Sehun and Minseok, it’s realer than anything you have ever had with anyone, _Princess_. Than anything you will ever have. Do not _dare_ compare our relationship to you rutting on a soldier like some—” 

And the ocean of anger within him, it swells and swells and overflows. 

“I deserve better than this, and I will take better until you treat me as you should. That soldier has shown me more kindness in these past couple of days than you have shown me in our entire year of marriage. I was Crown Prince once. I was raised to be than this. I remember what it meant to be raised for more than this.”

He laughs again, loud, mocking. 

“Meant for more than this. So that is why you seat yourself on common soldiers' laps, that is why you flirt with envoys. Because you aspire for more. Being shameful and common is aspiring for more.” 

“What right do you have, Prince? What more do you want from me? I behaved at the beginning. I did as they bade. I followed their training. And I wanted and I ached and I bled. And you threw me away long before I gave you a reason. You are meant to complement me. We are meant to complement each other. The astronomers—”

“You _cannot_ force me to want you, Princess. Why must I sacrifice my happiness, my one comfort to join you in your misery? Why must I change my life to suit your whims?"

And oh, the absurdity of this conversation, the futility of this conversation. And truly, the stars were so wrong. 

“And why must I sacrifice mine?”

“You lost. Your kingdom lost. I won. You are not allowed to make demands when you have lost.”

“And you are not allowed to make me your enemy when you are the one that conquered me and has kept me sequestered on a foreign throne for over a year. And you are not allowed to suddenly want me when it conveniences you. The Chief Astronomer said we were supposed to be equals. That we were bound. And you are supposed to be mine. You took me away with the promise that you would be mine.” 

“I made no such promise. I have done my duty.” 

The rebuff stings, sharp as a slap. 

“Will you sleep with Sehun or Minseok tonight then?”

"Would you allow me, Princess? Maybe make good on that cruel hope and invite that soldier into our tent?"

“Why are you—why am I not allowed my coping but you are? Why do you deny me…” His voice rises too sharply, pitches too vulnerable and weak and yearning and breaking and broken. “You are supposed to be mine,” he repeats. And he swallows. _My mountain. My tiger. My lion. My soldier. My husband. They promised me. You promised me_. 

“I do not want you. You cannot make me want you.” 

“I just want to be _acknowledged_ , Crown Prince. You have no idea how painful it is. To feel like _nothing_ , to not even be allowed the company of people that want me. And as the Crown Prince, as my husband, you too—you have duties, too. It is irreverent for you to act as if you do not want me. To—” He swallows hard, past the sudden, awful emotion in his throat. “Act as if you hate me as if I am nothing. I am meant to be your bride. You are meant to...treat me better.” Joonmyun smooths his hands over the wrinkles in his robes, tries to steady his voice, but it quavers damningly still. “If only because you are scared of the consequences.”

The Crown Prince exhales shakily and his fists are still curled and his nostrils are still flared and his face is still red, and he is still a soldier, still a beast, still a threat, but he shakes his head, rises, stomps away—towards the Grand General’s tent.

 

Joonmyun startles when he slides beside him that night long, long, long after.

He smells of wine. And he is warm to the touch. His voice low, low, low. 

“I do not wish to hurt you,” he says. “I did not mean to hurt you.” 

And he turns before Joonmyun has a chance to respond. 

Hunger is an ache that he feels clawing at his bones. 

And the stars unfurl one by one in the vast, black silk sky, and Joonmyun worries that he’ll implode from the crushing, crushing weight. He squeezes the fine silk of his bedclothes until it aches and then harder, harder, harder.

 

Seated across from him the next morning, the Crown Prince eats in silence, gazes up in occasion, in silence, too, before finally clearing his throat. He smiles at him wide and false, but trying. He’s trying. 

He asks if he slept well. 

Joonmyun blinks, swallows. “I had nightmares.”

The Prince’s lip twitches in a grimace. “You were shaking and crying. I will wake you next time.” 

Joonmyun bows his head, scoops another spoonful into his mouth. The Prince does, as well. And it’s an attempt.

 

Attempting still, the Crown Prince offers him a tight, encouraging “Nice shot” at their hunt. Whispers a strained, awkward, awkward, sincere “Good night” before crawling beside him on their bed, a “Good morning” when they both rouse. Offers to retrieve flowers for him for their next hot bath instead. Shakes him awake when he has a nightmare, doesn't comment as he wipes at hot tears.

 

A day and a half’s ride from his kingdom, they catch a buck. And Joonmyun, his is one of the fatal arrows. And Joonmyun, the fiercest Crown Princess that these men have ever seen, he’s useful after all. 

The Grand General insists on using what’s left of their alcohol, and he's trying, trying, trying. They both are. 

And it’s decidedly improper, unbecoming to lean drunkenly on anyone else, only proper and becoming to collapse on the Crown Prince, his husband, his soldier, his tiger, his dragon, his mountain, his, his, his. Heaven-sent, cosmic-bound. Joonmyun presses his face into his throat and breathes and nuzzles and sways and needs, and the Prince is curling his fingers into the nape of his neck, and Joonmyun is clinging tight lest he try to pull him away, try to deprive him when Joonmyun has been so deprived, so utterly starved for so, so long. 

The Crown Prince, he doesn’t. 

It’s the rice wine, he thinks, the glitter of stars above them, the revelry, the exhilaration of validation, the warmth of the Prince’s skin, the plushness of his lips as they graze along his overheated throat. It’s the campfire, too, the way it flickers across his face and heats him and reminds him of his freedom, of his _choice_ , his want, his splintering need. 

Want me, want me, want me. 

The Prince, fortunately, unfortunately, he doesn’t push him away when Joonmyun’s mouth collides with his, doesn’t doesn’t doesn’t misunderstand, doesn’t doesn’t doesn’t—

And his lips are softer—impossibly, impossibly softer—than Joonmyun is expecting, achingly plush, warm, and they tremble against his before parting, his hand sliding whisper soft against the nape of his neck, then up and around, cupping his face. He sighs into his mouth, kisses back, kisses deeper, kisses dirtier, kisses meaner and sharper and hotter and more desperate. A beast, the beast they’d promised was his. 

In his periphery, he registers movement—a tall, campfire garbled shadow. Sound, too, a gasp. Then the scurry of footsteps. But all that matters then, all that could matter is the Prince, his mouth. 

And oh, he tastes bitter and sweet and heady like rice wine, and Joonmyun moans as he presses even closer, needing more more more of his firm, rippling mountain of a body, drunk, drunk, drunk on the dizzyingly disarming slide of the Prince's impossibly soft, impossibly plush lips, the slick, plush and retreat of his tongue—so hot, hot, hot. 

The Crown Prince slides his hands over his check, cradles even as he bites his way across his throat, and it burns, and he burns and wants this and needs it—it’s been so, so long. 

He wants him. And Joonmyun he's truly bested him.

And _fuck_ , the quiet strength as he curls into him, dragon, tiger, soldier, the way he presses so distressingly close that Joonmyun can’t breathe, can’t think, only kiss back, tangle his fingers in his hair, and bite and kiss and need and take. 

The Prince twists his fingers in his hair, too, tugs him back, bites into his mouth as he curls his tongue deeper—as he wins, claims. 

Kisses like he’s winning, kisses like he’s claiming, kisses like he’s teaching a lesson, kisses like it's an attack. 

The realization is sharp and bright and cold. 

It’s wrong. Of _course_ , it’s wrong. This is a mistake. Of _course_ , it’s a mistake. Of course it’s the very worst kind. 

“Don’t touch me,” Joonmyun hisses against his mouth, tasting the Prince's hot, rasped groan, wanting, wanting, wanting so much he has to shove him back—hard. “Never touch me.” 

The Prince staggers, and his lips are so plush and achingly red—more achingly soft, Joonmyun remembers, more achingly warm—and his cheeks are flushed and his hair is disheveled, and his eyes are dark, and Joonmyun hates the heavy, heady, breathtaking want to press forward again, the way it chokes through him. 

He's something that wants Joonmyun's touch, something that Joonmyun wants to touch. But it's _wrong_.

“Don’t touch me,” he repeats. “Don’t—don’t. Never ever touch me.”

The Prince blinks, but nods curtly. His hands, at his side, are trembling, jaw set. And he’s still too unnervingly handsome, and he’d wanted him. He’d wanted him. 

Abrupt, the Prince turns, leaves, shaking still. 

And Joonmyun, he's also shaking. Only follows after he’s quelled it. 

Petulant, indignant, he sleeps at the very edge of the bed, gives the Prince so much room, but no excuse to touch him. 

But he wakes up in the middle of the bed, alone, cold. 

And the Prince, he emerges from Crown General Minseok’s tent. And Platoon Commander Sehun, he glares.

 

They stop at the river’s edge. Bathe together as it’s supposed to be. As is proper. 

But several, several spans apart. Silent, but like a war. 

Tense, awkward, they continue southwards to his old kingdom, his old home, defending the border he took there, redrawing the boundaries he'd claimed. 

Because a conquering kingdom, it never rests, and a conquering king, he's ever on the offense. Attacking, attacking, attacking. 

The hours, the fields stretch and ache and tear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m in a mad rush against the clock as hundred day husband airs. i don’t think i’ll finish mine first, but i’m gonna try my damndest, i promise. 
> 
> also to all the people that follow me on the twitter, this is _not_ the kiss i keep talking about loving so much, pls be advised


	8. Chapter 8

At noon, they arrive. 

And the Crown Prince and Joonmyun, their soldiers, their men, they receive a king’s welcome. What a disenfranchised, deposed, debilitated kingdom can manage of a king’s welcome. With music. With festivities. With dancers. With revelry. With food. With wine. A banquet that doesn’t makes his skin crawl and itch and bleed. 

And the Doh's soldiers, officers, men, they're given lodging for the night. The Crown Prince and Joonmyun are ushered into the Office Hall. 

And his baby brother—the Second Prince, the new _Crown Prince_ —crushes Joonmyun to his chest, attempts to crush the Crown Prince, too before he decides against. And his baby sister—breathless and uncharacteristically shy—squeezes hard and improper at his wrist, her dark eyes glittering with tears as she bows. 

It’s familiar enough, but wrong. But painful. And jarring. And overwhelming. How the trees looks exactly the same, how the mountains too. How the dirt feels the same beneath his hungry palms, how the air is that same sharp, salty sting of seaside. How his brother’s face has grown harder, stronger, how his sister has grown taller, how there is that tiniest bit more white in his parents' temples. 

Joonmyun, he can barely bear it. 

And his parents, they ask if he's happy. Ask how life is. Ask of the palace. Whether it’s as grand as they say. Whether Joonmyun is as pampered as he should be. And celebrated and appreciated and wanted and loved, as the Crown Prince that would be Queen. 

Joonmyun, he lies.

And as the ever-cruel stars glitter in the sky, Joonmyun, the Crown Prince, the old King, Queen visit the family shrine, pay homage to his ancestors, dine with their spirits, thank them for their small kindnesses, their small blessings. Then, the gardens. Then, the star observatory. Then, the lecture hall. Then Joonmyun's old room, old bed.

Familiar enough, but wrong. But painful. And jarring. And overwhelming. 

There’s oil—telltale—in pretty porcelain bottles at their bedside, and Joonmyun, face heating, flusters at the sight, stammers out a rushed explanation—how they hadn't been there before he'd gone, how the maids are clearly attempting to send some sort of message in this, show that they approve, that they want them to feel comfortable enough to do as they would in the palace, but there is no need, of course, there has been no need as of yet, of course. 

The Crown Prince laughs, but too tight and too loud, shoulders stiff. His fingers drum against the painted beams of their bedpost as he lingers. 

And swallowing thickly, Joonmyun remembers the curl of his lips, the taste of his shuddery moan, the way his fingers had tangled and tugged. 

And yes, there is a twisted sort of comfort in it, something grounding in the strain, the tight falseness of the Crown Prince’s smile. The awkwardness, as they prepare for bed, the familiarity of it. Even if the room is smaller, less fine, even if there are less servant girls to attend to them. The awkwardness, the quietness, the moon above them, the deep, deep chasm between their bodies, and the candlelight, painting the Prince’s face in stripes of soft gold, harsh black. And the reminder that they are meant to be each other's, the stars had decreed it. And the unspoken words and the ache— acute and dark and gnawing at more and more and more of him until he is hollow and paper thin. The most fragile, fragile doll. 

The protective inscriptions on the paper panels warp in the moonlight, familiar, haunted, wrong.

 

Restless, restless, Joonmyun sleeps fitfully through the night. Restless, restless, unsettled, unnerved, stumbles through the halls as dawn licks lazily over the horizon. Crashes into painted, carved columns, trips over glazed tiles. Feels foreign, foreign, wrong—even in his home, even in his skin, shivering in the frost-laced air. 

And restless, restless, greedy, desperate, he races through palaces within palaces, halls upon halls, loops through half-empty granaries, winds through shorn trees and caged animals, weaves his way around scurrying servants, grim-faced royal guards. And they speak as he does, dress like he does. They love him, know him, are his. Bow in quiet, familiar, loving, loving greeting when they spot him. And it’s familiar enough, even if it’s wrong, even if it’s painful and jarring and overwhelming. 

Joonmyun runs faster and faster and faster, lurching forward at times to untangle himself from his wrinkled, ruined robes. 

Stops finally at the Throne Room, his old Throne Room. 

It’s ornate and imposing and intimidating and bombastic and beautiful and his—at one point, promised to him at one point. And panting, winded, hopeless, hopeless, hopeless, Joonmyun kneels to trace over the gold-laced silk, the crushed satin, the red-lacquered wood, the smoothed jade, remembers, remembers, remembers that this had all been his, before the Doh had torn him away, worn him down, crushed him into this awful, awful, tiny, tiny thing. 

Joonmyun’s next exhale is weak, weak, shattering thing, and he rises slowly, shakily, joints aching, skin and heart, too.

He scrapes, instead, over the encrusted jewels on his father’s sword. Traces, too, over the stark, stark lines of every single holy character scarred into the faded gold handle, holy though they had failed him, failed his kingdom. 

And restless, restless, he races back to their chambers, squirms through their tea, invites the Crown Prince, on a whim, to step into the village with him, the dignitaries and envoys they are meant to meet, they are still several days away, the people, they still need to see that theirs is a fair and powerful leader. 

And the Crown Prince, agreeable, or too tired to protest, decides to leave the guards at the palace doors.

 

And Joonmyun is draped with fine jewelry still, as always, in his fine robes, too, as always, and he’s still plagued with that itching awareness of his regality—his borrowed, inherited regality—of his lonely, aching, gnawing majesty, too, like this in all of his Doh ornamentation. 

But it’s understated or it’s dulled or Joonmyun has just become damningly, mercifully, desperately desensitized. 

The Crown Prince’s arm winds around Joonmyun’s waist, protective, maybe, maybe even possessive. Guiding. But it doesn’t feel like a shackle. Doesn’t feel like a prison. Doesn’t feel like a conquest, and Joonmyun, he doesn’t feel like a cowed, broken, declawed former Prince when he follows its lead. Then leads in turn, curling his fingers into the ties at Prince’s robe to tug him faster. Towards better, brighter stalls.

And it's a balm, a relief, a reprieve, a gift, as they weave through the bright, bustling market stalls. An introduction. An invitation. An offering. 

Joonmyun, unaccustomed, after nearly a year, after too, too long, he nearly chokes on the sharp, bright stinging scent of fish in the air, laughs when the Crown Prince does. He inhales deep, deep, deep, grateful for the tickling cacophony of fried cuttlefish and spiced cabbage and dirt and boiling tea and waste. Grateful even for the slight twist of the Crown Prince's barely-suppressed grimace.

They amble, loop, wind, weave, speak. 

And they eat street food, in excess—buckwheat jelly, roasted sweet potatoes, sweet red bean rice cakes, fermented fish, persimmons, strawberries. The Crown Prince’s chapped fingers tremble as they peel the sweet potato skins, and their fingers brush as Joonmyun takes it, does it instead. 

The Crown Prince laughs as he dusts the excess peels on the vibrant ends of his robes. And grateful and trembling and smiling that same achingly beautiful smile he’d smiled in the fields, but in gratitude, in Joonmyun’s direction now, he pushes more into Joonmyun's mouth. His lips tingle, and he drops his gaze, picks at permisson tops, struggles with his knife until Kyungsoo offers his. 

And their legs and arms brush as they eat together on the grass, like commoners do, Joonmyun tells him, like the shrimp they _yearn_ to be, that they both can be at least for this day, at least in Joonmyun’s home. 

“It’s a shame there are no peaches yet,” Joonmyun murmurs as he squints up into the sky. “The peaches here are the best.” 

“We have peaches up North, too.”

Joonmyun grimaces, sighs, forces a smile. “They are not the same, Prince. The sea makes them sweeter. I think the salt.” 

Joonmyun offers another quarter of persimmon, and the Prince’s lips brush against his fingertips. Brief, hot. 

Joonmyun glances away. Towards the flower blossoms blooming already on the trees, the birds in the sky, then the others in the grass. The elders playing baduk, children playing ball. 

“I should show you the markets in the Doh kingdom again. I should introduce you to them properly.”

“I know them already, Your Highness.” 

The Crown Prince’s lip tilts at the corner, and Joonmyun watches the way the light glitters off a single, red bean there. “Right, the soldiers have their complaints. You should not,” he says, disconcertingly earnest. “It is dangerous. You should not put yourself in that kind of danger.”

Joonmyun traces absent patterns into his Doh silk, doesn’t respond, doesn’t want to respond. 

And the silence stretches, starts to sour. 

“I understand throwing wine or flirting with soldiers or destroying my books, but this is reckless. It is dangerous. You can get hurt. And people want to hurt you if only because they want to hurt me.”

Joonmyun, unsettled, kicks at the sand beneath his feet. “I did not think you would care honestly.” 

The Prince’s mouth twists into another grimace. “I care. I have already told you. You are a Doh, of course I care. You are my bride, of course I care. You are mine, you said. I care.” 

Warmth flares in his chest, and his fingers skip over his robes, looping over the fine, fine silver of a dragon’s coiled tail. “I appreciate your care,” he murmurs, looking away once more. 

And melting into the soft ground beneath him, Joonmyun plucks at fistfuls of grass just to feel the solid, wet earth beneath him and the bitter, aching, aching, jealous lingering winter chill. Joonmyun tilts his head back towards the sun, soaks in what he can of its rays, breathes in what he can of the sharp, salty sea air. Eyes closed, he tells him of his life here, his memories. Of blossom-laced air. Of painted lanterns. Of reckless, forbidden, boyhood rides on wagons. Another introduction, another invitation, another offering. 

The Crown Prince makes his own introduction, his own invitations, his own offerings. Tells him of his prior trips south. Of sea god festivals. Of moonlit walks on the beach. Of fermented eel so bitter and bright it made his eyes tear. 

Together, they watch street musicians then dancers, and Joonmyun tips with the stringed coins of his people—worth something still, here at least. He calls it a loan when he drops fistfuls into the Crown Prince’s pouch, drags his thumb over the embossed surface—familiar and comforting, worth something still, worth so much to him still even though he’s changed so.

The coins in his silk pouch rattle between them as they walk, continuing towards the beach, the ocean that the Doh now own, too, and the Crown Prince’s hand drops just the slightest to curl against his side, squeezing occasionally. It makes Joonmyun’s skin prickle and bristle and heat, but not enough, or not in the way that makes him want to pull away. Not quite yet. 

Unfortunately or maybe fortunately.

Joonmyun buys him a salted fish at a stall. His last gift, he says. All that a former Crown Prince can manage. 

And Joonmyun peels off his shoes, relishes in the scrape of sand and rocks and seaweed and seashells against his bare feet, the kiss of salt-drenched breeze against his skin, holds the Crown Prince’s hand to steady him as he lumbers over the uneven ground, feels most at home, feels most right in his skin like this after so, so long.

And beside each other, they eat once more. 

Lips pursed, the Crown Prince picks at some loose silver scales, dusts them against his robes, then wipes at his mouth with the back of his sleeve. His lips look ruddy, bruised with the movement even as they purse—further—in thought. 

“You crave this when abroad. When you are with the Doh.”

“Every single day.” 

“Well then we will have it every day.” 

Restless, restless, aching, Joonmyun sinks anew. 

“I miss this the most,” Joonmyun confesses, motioning with his chin. “Miss the ocean. Miss the air. Miss the smell.” 

Severe and daunting, it’s humbling. It’s terrifying. 

And the Crown Prince stares out into the ocean as if he understands, could understand, and Joonmyun watches the harsh beautiful crash and retreat of the ocean waves against the rocky shore and heals and heals and heals. 

The sky reflects the water, and the water the sky. Both so achingly endless. So vivid, so stark it hurts to look at directly, but Joonmyun he could. Forever if he could. Beside the Crown Prince, even, as long as he could. 

“You have suffered,” he says after several, several beats of silence. “From missing this,” he says. 

“You often—the Doh often...You act as if you believe them, the Doh. Believe I had a choice. Believe I was saved. Believe I am better in the Doh Kingdom.” He kicks his foot out, sighs. “Without my family. Without my people. Without my ocean.” He swallows, sighs. “I am not.” 

“I cannot. You cannot.” 

“I know but that does not make me less angry, Your Highness. Does not it make it less painful. That does not justify.” The Crown Prince's silence, it’s a gift. But it only makes the quaver in his voice all the more stark and damning, the unsteady vulnerably of his uneven breathing, that much much awful. 

“I do not,” he says, after six aching, awful beats. “Think that you are happier there. That you should be. I do not. But I cannot change things, Princess. You cannot change things.” 

Joonmyun sighs, long, long, long, tosses a rock into the sea. The ripple is small, small, small in the endless, gnawing stretch of the aching blue, the endless gnawing stretch of their aching silence. 

Fragile, fragile, fragile. 

Joonmyun rises to toss another, then a third, a fourth. Walks until the water is lapping at his feet, then his ankles, his knees, his waist. And he doesn’t even mind the bumbling of the Crown Prince at his side, can’t when he’s soaring high, high, high like this. 

The Prince’s laugh is startled and loud, and he shivers monumentally. But he follows, shuddering, stumbling, staggering before accepting Joonmyun’s hand anew. 

And together and silent, they plod, water-heavy and shivering to a sea cave nearby, Joonmyun’s sea cave nearby. 

“The maids beat for this once,” Joonmyun offers as the sea wind howls, the Crown Prince touches. “They found my shoes and thought I had drowned. And my father was so angry that I had not, that he insisted I be taught my lesson.” 

“Your parents, they allowed…?”

Joonmyun hums dismissively, and the Prince’s eyebrows pinch. 

He dips his head once more, drags his palms over the jagged, rocky edges of the sea cave, reminds him of its stinging scrape. Joonmyun copies. 

“When the astronomers were talking about us, they likened me to the ocean.”

“I, a mountain. The earth.” 

“This is our marriage.”

Joonmyun thinks of wearing by increments, shaping him as the water erodes the mountain, carving him raw and vulnerable and real, real like him. 

And the sunlight warped and glittering dances across the sharp, twisted angles, and it feels like an embrace, like a blessing, feels right like it always, always has. And the disembodied waves swell and crash and retreat, and in the blessed, familiar, comforting salt-laced air, he feels his eyes on him, feels the warmth of his companionship, and   
it’s a comfortable silence, feels like a comfortable union—theirs, natural and suited and fated and perfect just as the stars had foretold. 

They stand there in the too-cold air and savor it as long as they possibly can. 

Joonmyun shivers more and more and more in the fading sunlight as they wander back, and the Crown Prince reaches forward to steady him as if this isn’t his terrain, his home, as if he’s some child. The touch prickles, but Joonmyun swallows past the barb stinging at the tip of his tongue.

He means well. He is trying. Joonmyun is also trying. This is the best they can manage. But they can. They will. They are practicing. They are learning. Together. 

A woman sings on the beach, and Joonmyun shudders at the raw, raw yearning in her voice. A sailor’s wife abandoned, she waits for her husband at the coast every day, begs and sobs and hates and yearns and hopes. And her longing is deep and cruel and violent and stormy as the awful sea that has stolen him away. An ocean of anger, an ocean of hatred, an ocean of greed. 

“It reminds me of the song you sang for that officer,” the Crown Prince notes, and Joonmyun nods thickly. 

The rattle of her voice echoes in his bones, long after she’s stopped, long after they have returned. It's a haunting, resounding, haunting, aching reverb shaking through his bones, long, long after he’s meant to sleep. 

And in the darkness, the Crown Prince curls dizzyingly, mindlessly, recklessly closer, closer, closer.

 

The next morning, Joonmyun is ushered into the Office Hall, dressed as a Doh, but seated beside his father, his baby brother. Welcomed by the villagers, by nobles, by scholars, by advisors, by councilors. Next to a throne that is no longer his to claim, he is welcomed, told how he has been missed so _terribly_ , how he looks so well, though, beautiful, handsome, regal, well-fed, a man flushed with the blessings of following his fate. But wrong, he knows. Different, he knows. Not Southern as he should be, he knows. 

Shifting uncomfortably in his robes, Joonmyun listens to worries about rice shortages, complaints about the higher taxes along the border, calls also for his sister’s hand. Offers. The noblemen willingly offer their sons, but not their loyalty, insist that the Doh are too far, too foreign, that they have already taken their Crown Prince from then, they cannot have their little turtle from them either. They need a southern noble, one that understands the sea.

 

His brother threads his fingers through Joonmyun's, tugs him to their gardens. He peels off his crown, his shoes, insists it feels best with the grass tickling between his toes, Joonmyun should also try.

And he’s grinning, bright, breathless, handsome, affectionate, barefoot. Just like before but taller, but older, his baby brother. 

He ducks away, laughing, when Joonmyun makes to tug at the halfknot on his head.

“You weren’t supposed to pass your hyung, Nini,” he tells him, and the Second Prince shakes his head, bites his lip around the shyest smile, such a child still. Much too soft still.

“I had to grow, had to protect us.”

Joonmyun stands on his tiptoes to tug at his ear, and Jongin yelps, scurries away. 

“But you have changed, too,” he counters. flicking at one of the jewels on Joonmyun’s robes, thumbing over his cheek, frowning just the slightest as he brushes beneath his lashline. “Are you happy? Your eyes—even here—they are so sad.”

Joonmyun swallows past the sudden lump in his throat. 

“I do not think that war brides are meant to be.” 

“Does he...Has he hurt you?”

And his eyebrows pinch with concern or worse yet _pity_ , and he isn’t meant to worry his baby brother like this. 

“They meant it when they said he was a beast. But not—never physically. He is cold. Hard.”Joonmyun shakes his head, and the beads on his headpiece rattle with the movement. He remembers how his face melts with laughter, how his face pinches with worry, his promises, the achingly plush press of his lips. Joonmyun shakes his head even harder. “He is so hard. He is a beast trying to be human.”

“You are unhappy,” his brother presses, and his voice is steady, but his eyebrows are furrowed, lips jutted in a pout. And Joonmyun, unsettled, pinches his cheek, presses his thumb into the corner of his mouth to force a smile. It’s half-hearted, but it’s there. And that’s enough at least for the moment. 

“I’m trying not to be. That is all you can ask of me, that I try.”

Jongin opens his mouth as if to protest, and Joonmyun presses into the softness of his belly instead. It has him squirming, barking out a laugh—more than enough. “Make some offerings for me at the altars. Sponsor some shamans. That’s all you can ask of me, little brother.” 

And he nods solemnly, and Joonmyun’s heart twists and twists and twists, feels wrung out from the aching, aching pressure. He strains to smooth the unnerving furrow between his brows.

“Do not worry so much, Second Prince. You will know if I suffer.”

Jongin waves him away dismissively. Careless as ever, he climbs onto a fence pole, balances with his arms hovering in the air.

“But you never write,” Jongin scolds. “You should write. I miss your words. I miss your insights.”

The sun glitters behind him, haloes him golden and regal and, and it makes Joonmyun’s eyes hurt, makes his heart hurt to look at him. What right did he have to grow so tall, so broad in Joonmyun’s absence? What right did he have to change? 

“Climb down,” Joonmyun yells at him. “You’re much too precious for these kinds of games now, my little brother.”

Jongin smiles, twirls, pounces to another pole, all long grace, feline elegance and poise, a second Prince people will probably would have preferred, their precious little bear. But he is too precious. Too soft. Too naive. To easy to hurt.

 

That night, Joonmyun and his husband they're served another feast, filled to the brim with meat, rice, ginseng, ushered afterwards by giggling, red-faced servant girls towards the baths—together. 

And there are expectations of tonight, he knows. Expectations he has no desire to fulfill. 

But the servant girls giggle and they flush and they strip and they disappear, and it’s only Joonmyun, only the Crown Prince. Only together.

It’s a finer bath than any they’ve shared up until now. And the steam, the way the peach flower petals swirl around his waist, the way that Crown Prince’s eyes feel—even fleeting, even by accident—on his skin, they make Joonmyun sleepy, light-headed, make him feel vulnerable, too. 

The Crown Prince is the one that lingers this time, at the edge of the bath, naked, vulnerable. Hesitates once more. 

Joonmyun flushes, turns bodily away, sinks into the water to hide his skin. 

And the Crown Prince is the one to touch now, hesitant, soft, tracing a scar on Joonmyun’s shoulder.

“You are not a soldier,” he says. “Just a prince.”

“A princess,” Joonmyun corrects around a shudder. “An insolent one. Ran off to the marketplace without my maid.”

And the Crown Prince, emboldened, huffs out a laugh, dances featherlight, inwards, grazes so, so very softly. “Put a toad in my advisor’s robes.” 

His breath billows hot, hot, hot against Joonmyun’s tense shoulders as his fingers dance along his arm, trace over a knotted, ugly, ugly scar. Joonmyun bites his lip to keep from crying out but jerks, and the Crown Prince does, too, pulling away. 

“I fell from a fence,” he says, turning to face him. “I was trying to fly away.” 

The Crown Prince’s jaw is set, but his eyes are soft or pensive or just hazy in the steam’s thick, thick embrace. “Not a shrimp, but a bird, then? Even here?”

And Joonmyun nods, drops his gaze, and the silence stretches and stretches and stretches.

The muscles in the Crown Prince’s arms and chest flex as he finally, finally, finally moves, scrubbing at his own skin. And Joonmyun, sinking further into the water, sliding further away, he also scrubs, looks finally away. 

It's a fragile almost-peace, their silence, the weight of the Crown Prince’s soft or pensive or hazy gaze.

They sleep incrementally closer, nearly, nearly touching. But the ginseng pumping through their veins, the pretty, porcelain go to waste.

 

They meet envoys over the next several days. Host them as Doh, in the Office Hall dressed in their finest silk. Foreign, charming, ingratiating. Are charmed with honeyed promises, gold-lined gifts, and Joonmyun—Crown Princess that he is—intercepts more foolish, improper, ill-advised, reckless, dangerous glances, foolish, improper, ill-advised, dangerous words. 

He hates it—just as much here. 

The Crown Prince agrees to visit the markets again, leave the guards again. 

And they eat skewers of meats, vegetables, and the juice drips down their fingers, onto their wrists, dots the wrinkled silk at their laps. 

“You eat the shrimp,” Crown Prince notes, and Joonmyun nods around a mouthful, wipes primly at the sticky, oily corner of his mouth. 

“What kind of sea prince would I be?”

“I thought—at camp.”

“I am of the sea, my Prince.” 

And they return to it afterwards. 

The water laps at his feet, and he sinks further into the sand, likes the scrape of it against his bare skin. 

At his side, the Crown Prince copies. As if he understands. As if he could change. 

And Joonmyun glances up at the sky, the crushing awful terrifying vastness. Aches, aches, aches to be free. 

And Joonmyun doesn’t have scars for his trouble, wasn't’ ever foolish enough even as a child to provoke the fanged, gnarled shadow looming in his periphery. 

But tipping forward, he tells the Prince of large prints he'd found scarring the beach, the stolen fish, the fishermen's charms and lanterns to keep the monsters away. 

The Crown Prince’s laughter, his smiles come easier, easier, easier, come to him with only the slightest coaxing. 

And this is how it’s meant to be, this is how he’s meant to be. How they both are. How they had promised. 

And the knowledge of it curls around him, warm and soft and thick and hazy, smoke and heat, lingering, lingering, lingering, even after they slide beneath the sheets. 

The cold lingers, too, lingers still, and Joonmyun curls closer in the candlelight. The Crown Prince, too. He speaks, and his voice is so, so, so soft, gentle, gentle, measured, slow, not at all like the beast he’s meant to be. No, no, no, softer, scarier, stranger, almost like something that could be tamed, like something that wants taming. 

And Joonmyun is terrified.

 

And at a tea house the next evening, after another meeting, another escape, Joonmyun bends forward until the steam kisses his face, until the heat bleeds into his fingers, and in between sips, he recounts even more tales of his childhood adventures, the trees he’d climbed, the soldiers he’d impersonated, the horses he’d ridden, the merchant grandmothers he’d charmed, the boys he’d fought, the teahouses he’d frequented, the musicians he’d sung with, and, oh, the punishments, oh, the lectures. He had always been trouble.

He likes how open and startled the Prince’s laugh is, the way he’s flushed cheeks pinch and his eyes sparkle, likes also the fact that he’s undoubtedly the cause, that there is something at least more than vaguely pleasant between them now. 

And it doesn’t fade this time, the pleasantness, the peace, not when they eat dinner, not when they bathe together at opposite ends of the bath house, not even when they crawl beneath the sheets and it’s exhilaration—ephemeral and precious and unfair and fragile as it is—just the thought of this maybe working between them, just the possibility. 

“I was never brave as you,” he whispers. "Never brave enough to defy them so openly in spite of the consequences. I was never so insolent.” His voice is soft, maybe almost awed. “I was never as driven. I was never good at studying either,” he says, and Joonmyun startles at the deep rumple of his low, pensive voice. “I have always been best at hurting things, I think,” he continues after a beat. “That is why they sent me to train, I think. Even as a child, I could bear more injuries and punishments without complaint. Could only reason or think or love with my fists. But that is not the proper way to be king. It is not what the heavens want or what the people need or what I am meant to do. I am learning,” he says after a pause. “I am trying to learn, at least “ 

He tips forward, hesitates, hovers, hovers, then tucks a stray strand of hair behind Joonmyun’s hypersensitive, hot, hot, hot ear, and Joonmyun’s entire body tenses and aches at the fleeting touch. The way his thumb grazes whisper soft along his jaw, down the column of his throat, bunching the fine silk at his collarbone. Bold, bold, awful, awful. And Joonmyun can still remember the hot, hot, violent taste of him on the roof of his mouth, behind his teeth. Can still—can’t, can’t, can’t.

“Your High—”

“Please teach me.”

Joonmyun swallows, and the Prince’s thumb nail drags up up over his Adam’s apple, cradling. “We learn together,” he says. “Teach each other." 

“I would really like that.” 

Something so, so soft and warm bubbles in his chest, spreads tingling and delicate and sparkling through his limbs. But he brushes the Crown Prince’s bold, bold, awful, awful fingers away, turns away in the darkness. Still, still, still terrified. Unnerved, unsettled, undone.

 

The terror, it fades. But the unease, it lingers. The insecurity. The restless agitation. 

And Joonmyun avoids him until he cannot. Visits his little turtle, little bear, promises to write, promises to send more presents, Doh treats as they have requested.

He takes his tea, his afternoon meal with them. Tosses stones into their brook, watches fish, feeds caged birds, counts clouds, collects dead leaves, laughs and holds and heals and heals and heals.

Avoiding until he absolutely cannot. Until dusk is licking over the horizon, and he's being ushered into his room. 

And even then, Joonmyun watches his profile in his periphery. His— _his_ Crown Prince Kyungsoo, they tell him. Startlingly, disconcertingly handsome, regal and strong. But sharp, but untouchable, but not ever really meant to be his. 

Joonmyun had known that from the start, knows it even now. 

And the knowledge of it itches at the back of throat, presses tight and heavy against his shoulders, curling jealously around his chest. Hurting, hurting, hurting. 

But Kyungsoo’s eyes on his face, though, they’re too soft, Joonmyun thinks, all things considered. In his country, in his bed, in his room, he’s too disconcertingly soft, Joonmyun thinks, all things considered. 

And it makes it easier to start to want things because they’re there. Makes it easier want things that he shouldn’t. That he didn’t. Makes it easier to imagine that Kyungsoo wants them, too. Makes it easier to think the heavens really do know best. 

"Was there anyone with you?” he asks that night to remind himself, to remind them both. “Anyone you wanted before—before I was decided for you?”

_Platoon Commander Oh Sehun, remind me of him. Grand General Kim Minseok, remind me of him, too. How you want them. How you promised you could not and would not want me, Kyungsoo._

Kyungsoo’s eyebrows pinch, and Joonmyun’s fingers itch to smooth the furrow away. But they curl tight into their silken sheets instead. 

_Remind me. Remind me_.

“I do not think it right…to dwell on the past. I think we should just make the most of our present.” The moonlight dances across his dark eyelashes. And it’s too heavy, too unnerving, unsettling to meet for too long, his gaze. “Together, I think.” 

“Crown Prince,” Joonmyun says, just to break the silence. 

_Remind me_. 

“And if we are to be rulers,” he continues after a pensive, pregnant beat. “If we are making the most of the present...Of the stars. You have accepted me, Princess. I can also accept you. In my campaigns. In my lectures. In council meetings.”

He means to include him, means it in earnest, and oh, the unease, the insecurity, the restless agitation. It will be in vain, he knows, because Kyungsoo, he can’t, and Joonmyun, he’s never—

Joonmyun shifts forward, drags his sleeping robe higher, past his elbow. “I was never very good at lectures,” he confesses, presenting the faint, faded stripe on his arms, near his wrists. “I was the bane of many tutors.”

He does not. He cannot. He should not. 

And Kyungsoo reaches forward, soothes his thumbs into the juts of his wrist then into the backs of them, and Joonmyun shudders but lets him. 

And Kyungsoo presses even harder, climbs even higher. His hands curl loosely around Joonmyun’s elbows. And Joonmyun shudders harder, but doesn’t want to pull away. Doesn’t want Kyungsoo to pull away either. 

“Your arms,” he says. 

“Legs, too,” Joonmyun breathes, curling his knees up, then forward, brushing between Kyungsoo's. “The backs of my calves.” And Joonmyun doesn’t make to lift that material, but Kyungsoo touches him, nonetheless after a breathless, breathless beat.

“They scarred such precious skin,” he says after a moment, pensive, soft, soft, soft. “They couldn’t have know what a crime it was.”

“They scarred you, too,” Joonmyun counters. “Your skin, it was so precious, too.”

Kyungsoo laughs, twists his fingers in the cloth at Joonmyun’s knees. “But not in the name of bettering me. Not for my own good. The people that hurt me, they did it because they wanted me hurt. It’s worse like this," he decides in an exhale. "It’s so much worse like this.”

And he’s touching still, absent, aimless, swiping over his knees, inwards towards his thigh. It's light, lingering, languid, languid, languid, and it steals Joonmyun’s breath in tiny, tiny increments. 

Joonmyun, he still isn’t meeting Kyungsoo’s gaze, but he can feel Kyungsoo’s eyes on him as he watches Kyungsoo’s throat, his mouth, the way his breath is seemingly stolen in tiny, tiny increments too as he skims his hand higher, higher, higher. 

It aches, but sweet and soft and slow. 

“Your Highness,” he finally says, a whisper, excruciatingly soft and shaky and unsure. “Crown Princess.” And Joonmyun rests his hand over Kyungsoo’s, stops its ascent. Kyungsoo exhale is soft and shaky and unsure, too. And Joonmyun watches his lip catch between his teeth, still refuses to meet his eyes. “Crown Princess,” he repeats, and Joonmyun finally, finally braves a glance upwards. 

He doesn’t recognize the softness there, the raw, fragile question in his eyes. Doesn’t know how to answer it, can’t can’t can’t—

Kyungsoo tips forward sudden or slow, bold or hesitant, and Joonmyun tilts away. Their noses skim, cheekbones graze. Kyungsoo’s hand trembles around Joonmyun’s thigh. 

“Crown Prince,” he says, and it trembles even harder, finally pulls away. But he’s still so, so achingly close, and Joonmyun breathes in his every unsteady, soft, fragile, shaky, shaky exhale. 

And he’s weak and raw with want, devastated and undone, aching, aching, aching, vulnerable and burning and drowning. And so, so, so very terrified. So, so, so very undone. 

Kyungsoo pulls finally away. And something crawls up his throat, and he swallows rapidly, blinks. 

He turns on his side, and Kyungsoo hesitates, wraps an arm around him. Joonmyun drags it higher, over the loose fabric at his chest, the ruined race of his heartbeat. 

Kyungsoo’s nose skims the nape of Joonmyun’s neck, breath burns hot and wet. 

Joonmyun tilts his head back, increases the pressure just, just, just enough for Kyungsoo’s lips to part against his skin in a tiny, forced, aborted kiss. 

Just the laziest, softest, most reckless, awful indulgence. 

Kyungsoo shifts behind him, whispers his fingers over Joonmyun’s arms, shoulder blades, nape. Absent, quivering patterns.

Hanja, he tells him. Then pay attention. Learn. 

And fluttering his eyes closed, Joonmyun tries to count the strokes. Gold, he thinks. Then Star. Then Earth. The Water. Then City. Then Protection. 

Joonmyun shivers then loosens as the characters climb higher and higher up his neck, teasing faintly over his scalp. 

Sinking into a stupor, he’s tense, tense, tense, unnerved, unsettled, undone, somehow still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for your incredible patience with this fic  
> i know im constantly trying it


	9. Chapter 9

The Crown Prince had warned that it would only be a week—at the very _most_ —that they could spare. 

And it passes much, much too soon in the monotonous falseness of their final diplomatic niceties. 

Joonmyun is at his side when he meets with advisors, with diplomats, with dignitaries swearing their allegiance, promising to challenge and punish those that would betray the Crown. Joonmyun is at his side during meals, too, at bathing times, at night when they curl into their bed. Nearly, nearly, nearly touching. 

And at his side, he persuades him to explore more of the territory he'd conquered, the markets stalls, the fields, the temples, the fishing villages that were now his, now _theirs_.

And greedy, greedy, greedy, Joonmyun gorges, gorges, gorges himself to bursting. 

His last night is spent by the sea, his husband at his side, watching the reckless, restless raging waves as they churn, churn, churn, crest, crash, break and bleed at his feet.

 

It hurts so, so much. Too, too much to leave. 

Hurts more than he can bear. The violent, angry, aching, unforgiving sea swelling, swelling, swelling beneath his skin, waves as high as mountains, scraping angrily, uselessly at the awful, awful sky. 

It is all he can do to keep himself upright. 

Stiff, swallowing, aching, aching, Joonmyun is terrified that if he breathes too hard, breathes at all, that his paper thin skin will tear and bleed. 

But Joonmyun, he doesn’t cry as they prepare their provisions, load their horses. Doesn’t even cry as his family embraces him, tucks gifts into his robes, onto his horse, promise to pray for him, making offerings for him, write to him, love him. Want him. Need him. Thank the heavens for him, still. 

No, he doesn’t even cry as they march in a procession through the achingly familiar, achingly precious palace gates. 

Not even as they march north, north, north, away.

 

Squeezing his reins white-knuckled, sore, Joonmyun holds on, on, on, until the air changes, sweetens, heats, until the grass and trees thicken, grow, until the lush, too-green mountains scrape the sky. Until they truly, truly start to leave the South—his _home_ —behind. 

The impossible vastness of the sky, of his own loneliness, his own despair, it crushes his chest, his trembling body, and it’s much, much, much too much to contain. 

The sorrow, it wrenches him open. 

Heaving with it, he buries his face in his horse’s mane as he sobs, nuzzles desperately into his warm, soft coat, and he cries and cries and cries himself completely dry. Burrows, lingers even afterwards just to feel the steady, soothing thrum of his horse’s heartbeat against his overheated, damp, tight, tight skin. Lingers for another 40 or 50 paces before finally lifting his head. 

He feels Crown Prince’s eyes on him when he does, wipes hastily at the tears on his cheeks, scrubs hard enough to sting. 

And the Crown Prince’s eyes linger much, much, much too long before finally sliding mercifully away.

 

They break at noon. 

Joonmyun blinking rapidly to keep from crying once more, he untucks his dumplings for something to do, offers them when the Crown Prince settles beside him. The heat of his body, it’s an itch, an imposition. Joonmyun breathes past it. 

His fingers brush against Joonmyun’s wrist, and he breathes past that, too. 

“Next time,” he starts, disarmingly, distressingly soft and placating and not at all the beast, the soldier he is _meant_ to be. “Next time, we will not make it a year between visits, Princess,” he says. 

He pauses, swallows, and Joonmyun, blinking past the stinging winter sunlight, he watches the movement. 

“We come South often,” he continues. “The nobles, they often...The next time that I come, I promise I will invite you.” 

Joonmyun is strained, weak, trembling, but Kyungsoo's responding smile, it’s soft, hesitant, an offering. 

Greedy, greedy, greedy, Joonmyun allows himself to take. Allows himself to believe.

 

The ride back is smoother, warmer, less acutely painful. 

Trying, they're both trying. 

And Joonmyun makes a point of avoiding Chanyeol’s soft, sweet, forbidden gazes. Makes a point of dashing the bold, beautiful, reckless, breathless, breathless, breathless yearning he finds there.

Dutiful, proper as he’d practiced and learned and known, he eats and bathes and hunts and sleeps with his husband, pretends it’s enough, tries, tries, tries to make it enough. And he nearly succeeds. 

And it's a ceasefire or a maybe more formal declaration of peace, but it’s nice—at least—for Kyungsoo to not be his enemy, their marriage a war, nice to feel accepted, if not wanted or appreciated or loved. Nice to be included, to belong, if only for the moment, if only like this in the fields where it doesn’t really matter, where they can all play at being the men that they wish they were.

Joonmyun, he still hungers. He still hurts. But he can bear it. He can manage. He has only grown stronger.

 

At their monthly temples rites, the air is laced with camphor and smoke and hope and reprieve.

 

The Crown Prince, he had reminded him, warned him. But the Spring Festival still catches him unaware. Still weighs too much. The honeyed pastries, the sickly sweet alcohol, the ringing drums, still more than he feels equipped to handle. 

Joonmyun scrubs his fingers aching against the lacquered wood of his throne, smiles so wide his jaw aches, bears it and behave as he promised he would. Trying his hardest, as he promised he would. 

On shaky legs, he rises. Through shaking lungs, he breathes. Or tries. And the Crown Prince shuffles forward, curls a slow, slow arm around his waist.

And Joonmyun needs it so badly his entire body throbs with the emotion, needs it even worse, skin tearing and crying out for it. Terrified he lurches forward, Kyungsoo's pulse dances against his cheek. And cradled like that, for that brief, terrifying moment, he feels foolishly inexplicably small and safe and accepted and wanted. Feels the lie with his entire body. 

“Breathe,” the Prince says. “No one is here. Just you and I. Just breathe.” 

Inhaling raggedly, Joonmyun does. He buries his nose into Crown Prince Kyungsoo's collar, tastes his pulse, and breathes and breathes and breathes. 

And he can. He can. 

He has practiced. He has learned. And he is trying though he feels the phantom burn of his touch, prickling, much, much too sharp. 

Drunk and playful and unsettlingly good-natured, Kyungsoo peels the flowers from his flower cake, too, but much much much more diligently, careful not to tear a single delicate, purple petal. He sprinkles them on Joonmyun’s lap afterwards, laughing. Joonmyun’s heart squeezes helplessly tight with emotion—confusing, breathtaking, fragile, fragile emotion—and overcome, he swallows several times to dislodge the painful lump of _something_ in his throat, his restless fingers skipping over the lip of his glazed, green bottle. Kyungsoo, eyebrows pinching, lips thinning, brushes them suddenly away. The petals, crushed, fall at his feet, and Joonmyun kicks them away, too. Breathless, he blinks consciously through that painful, awful lump still lodged in his throat. 

And for the rest of the evening, Kyungsoo’s smiles are that awful, painted-on fake, ugly but falsely pleasant. Joonmyun, he’d broken them. Joonmyun, he drinks to forgive himself for breaking them. 

The sweet flower wine makes his stomach twist tighter, tighter, tighter, makes the colors swirl and dance and bleed. Discreet, poised, he sneaks away to the bathrooms, digs his thumb into his clothed belly as he doubles over and dry heaves until there are tears matting his eyelashes. His fist smears his eyelids black.

Better, it’s better.

 

Spring bleeds over the city. Triumphant. Fluttering. Warm. 

And the flowers bloom. And the birds sing. And the grass grows. And the bitter snow melts. And the days grow longer, warmer, more beautiful, more bearable. 

And Joonmyun, he finds a fleeting glimmer of light, of warmth in this fragile, faint, faint flickering peace between them, Joonmyun and his husband. 

He joins the lectures, as requested, as advised, as invited. 

And the drone of Doh advisors, they make his mind hazy, the blocky, too-small characters make it spin, and his wrist aches from the repetitive monotonous tense and release of his rabbit hair brush, but Kyungsoo smiles at him—secret and small—whenever their eyes meet and it seems that Joonmyun can bear that, too.

When he meets with the Royal Consort, it isn’t with the starvation of a man denied, a man forgotten, a man ignored. He inhales the heady warmth of her throat, plays with the fine, fine bones in her fine, fine hands, curls his body into hers, cradled. 

And it seems a fate he can accept.

 

And the hours, they pass easier. 

The festivals. The banquets. The rites. 

On his high, painted throne, belonging—very nearly belonging—Joonmyun watches, participates, means it when he smiles. 

The Crown Prince laughs when Joonmyun smears too much black on his lantern, holds his hand to correct his strokes. 

Holds his hand as they perform rites for the farming season, too, their successful sowing. Tips forward to explain how in the North, in their land, they believe in warding off evil spirits, the ones that arise with the bigger game.

He laughs into Joonmyun’s shoulder during the games. The stone battle, the wrestling. Purses his lip and tucks himself into his throne when Regiment Commander Wonshik, bowing theatrically, dedicates this victory and all victories to their beautiful Southern Princess. Born of starlight, bathed in gold. The one that stars had foretold. 

And at Joonmyun’s birthday, the advisors, the subjects call for another speech, one as rousing—as mockingly false—as the one the Crown Prince had made the year before. 

Joonmyun tenses, already dreading. 

Crown Prince Kyungsoo’s fingers curl discreetly against his knee, squeezing hard and grounding. It startles him, and Joonmyun’s thigh shudders against his palm, and his throat shivers with a shuddering breath. In his periphery, Kyungsoo’s lips quirk, but it's impossible to see from this angle into precisely _what_ facial expression. Kyungsoo squeezes again, then loosens, and his fingers draw tiny, tight circles, tracing over the fine embroidery. Butterflies, dragonflies, lotus leaves. 

Joonmyun, he can’t breathe. But somehow manages to place his hand over Kyungsoo’s, holding it there. 

Bowing his head, Kyungsoo raises his glass. Declares that the Crown Princess, he’s become even more important to him, become even more what he needs. Words escape him, but he’s happy. The Crown Princess is worth celebrating, the stars, too, for bringing them together. 

The Prince doesn’t move his hand afterwards. 

And they both eat, drink one-armed, Joonmyun dribbling soup, dropping noodles, rice cakes, pieces of sliced fruit as he attempts to eat with his non-dominant hand. 

And the quirk of the Prince’s lips, it’s more obviously a smile. 

He only pulls away when they retire for the night. 

And they are disrobed on opposite sides of the room, curl into opposite sides of the bed. 

But Joonmyun can feel Kyungsoo’s eyes on him, can hear the hesitant, quiet exhaling start and stop of a dozen or so abandoned opening sentences. But nothing comes of it, and the silence stretches longer and longer and longer, a drowning, gnawing sort of vacancy. It pulses with Joonmyun's every heartbeat. 

“Thank you, Prince ,” Joonmyun finally says. “For the speech. For your hand,” he clarifies after a beat. _For my breath_. 

“Happy birthday,” Kyungsoo responds. And he turns then, bodily, a little too abrupt, a little too gruff, a little to brusque. But Joonmyun still finds himself smiling if only for that moment.

 

And when Joonmyun writes. It's of luxury and intrigue and poems he traces with his aching, ink-stained fingers. Of perfumed silk and decadent diplomatic gifts and vibrant flowers and bombastic imperial music. And of vibrant market stalls, of spicy Northern meats, sweets, soups, of the mournful, yearning Northern songs, a love that climbed over the mountain, left him to fill his valley with tears. 

And his little bear tells him of the local shamans’ omens, of the fishermen's’ torn and overflowing nets, of foreign dignitaries, too, of the peaches, the plums, the watermelon, of how many fogs their little turtle caught during the spring rrains. 

The days only lengthen, heat, and Joonmyun welcomes it. The festivity. The flutter of activity. Welcomes the distraction, the reprieve. Forgives it even its sticky-hot kisses. Even the droning mosquitos he swats at during his lectures. Even the sickening-sweet aroma of oils on his skin, bleeding along his collar, his wrist. Even the scattered, angry, thunderous rain that have him tottering to his chambers, filled to the bursting with ginseng chicken, ginseng wine.

 

But the ceasefire, the fragile, fragile peace they have, it’s shattered in due time. 

The King, he’s ailing again, worrying over the Crown Prince, the fact that he still hasn’t visited the Royal Concubine. Still hasn't assuaged the rebels in the South. In the North. Has stirred rebellion in even the East. 

Still isn’t taking it _seriously_ , his station, his duty. Still isn't suited. 

The Second Prince, he’s returning to the palace. And the people are speaking, and the King himself is beginning to wonder. 

The Second Prince, he’s young. But he might be better suited. The people, they talk. His advisors, they also talk. 

And the Crown Prince, he's done nothing to contradict them.

 

A child, Kyungsoo tells him over their morning porridge, repeats over their breakfast tea. He’s a child. Like your Second Prince. Just exactly. A naive, too-soft child who fools others with his handsome face and long limbs and strong jawline and too-charming smiles. 

The child, the Second Prince, the Prince the advisors, the common folk, the butcher, the blacksmith, the rice farmer, the salt seller would prefer, his name is Jisoo. And the people—at least a substantial portion of the people—they think the campaigns in the West have hardened him, have molded and shaped him into a more suited ruler. 

Their preferred, childish, too-soft Prince returns the next week with a triumphant swell of bombastic drums and horns and strings. With a procession of travel-weary, iron-plated horses, soldiers. With bows. With embraces. With gifts from the West. Tea and spices and pottery and wax-sealed declarations of peace. 

Returns with the King's smile. With the Crown Prince’s, too. With his people's hopes and dreams.

 

Joonmyun sticky-hot, throbbing, listless with the heat, he lays besides the pond, watches the fish flit beneath the clear water. 

Overheated, he heats even more—too, too, too much—when the Second Prince wriggles beside him to fan him. His head tilts back towards the sun, vibrant robes wrinkled around his knees. 

In recovery, after so many, many moons away, in need, lonely and bold and entitled, the Second Prince asks his name, not his title, not what everyone else calls him, his name, please. The name his people had given him when he'd been born of starlight, divinely blessed. When his golden kingdom still counted, Joonmyun thinks, bitter, bitter, hurt. 

But the Second Prince’s eyes are sincere, and he traces the Hanja characters in the earth. Strokes careful, but steady, his smile, eyes, voice soft. 

Wanting to become better acquainted with the beautiful Princess that has softened the Crown Prince's smile, loosened his shoulders, he insists on spending time—even more time—together. 

He asks what it's like near the ocean. If he misses it and how badly. Then of the food. Of the people. Of the music. Listens, rapt, through Joonmyun's every murmured response.

 

And he isn't a child, the Second Prince. Not in the cut of his jawline, in the breadth of his shoulders, in the length of his legs, in the deep timbre of his voice. 

But his heart—his heart is young, soft, pure. Desperate for the hyungly affection he's been denied for so, so long. For a whole 18 months, but honestly longer, the Crown Prince he’s never been as openly affection as the Second Prince needs. Not instinctually. Not like the Crown Princess. 

Jisoo, he's also been starved. Jisoo, he’s been seeking an ally, too. 

And there’s wonder, easy affection, easier familiarity in the way his touches Joonmyun, boyish, bold, and brash. Improper or nearly, but with no heat or want or lust or threat. 

And Joonmyun, he becomes familiar with the weight of his strong, regal jaw on Joonmyun's shoulder, with the breadth of his wide, mountain shoulders rolling tight into Joonmyun's back, with the restless jitter of his thigh against Joonmyun's, with the heat of his deep, deep voice ghosting over Joonmyun's neck, rumbling with the most inane, most innocent observations. 

The Second Prince tucks Joonmyun in his arms whenever they hug—frequently—cradles him, makes him achingly conscious of his size. A mountain, too. Tall and broad and looming and strong as one but soft and yielding, bending to curl around him, too. 

Soft, everything. Much, much too soft for what the kingdom would require of him, the ruthlessness of the crown. And kind. And boyish. And lonely. And curious. And so, so affectionate. 

He insists his leisure time, rare and precious as it is, is best spent with Joonmyun. And lying side by side on the grass, surrounded by the sweet, sweet swell of singing birds, they talk. Alternately drink sweet tea. Alternately embrace. Alternately stare up at the sky to find the shapes in the clouds. A dragon. A rabbit. A wolf. A tiger. A princess. A whale. 

He asks for Joohyun, too. An honest match when they play baduk. And Joonmyun watches with vague indignation, vaguer jealousy as he bests her sincerely again and again. 

She squeezes his cheek, murmurs about how well he's grown. The Consorts, they all make offerings to the temple gods in hopes that he might pick them. Might one day bear his child. 

And he flushes the prettiest shade of red, stammars about how it is he who is honored. Plays another round. Then one more. Until duty has her called away. 

The sky is bleeding dark. The stars starting to twinkle overheard, but the Second Prince insists on speaking just a little bit longer. Having just a little more time. He asks about the Crown Prince. About his injury. About their banques. About their rites. About their hunting trip. About the wrestling matches. About how his face had looked when he’d been toppled. About their trip south. About their trip back. About the way the Crown Prince had held Joonmyun’s hand during their monthly rites. About the way he’d whispered into his temple. 

He furrows his eyebrows as he listens. Purses his lips. Repeats that he’s grateful for the stars. For the Crown Prince’s softened smile. Loosened shoulders. For their future. For the softness in his gaze now, too soft to bear.

 

Several days later, Joonmyun, upon Jisoo’s insistence, he wears Jisoo’s clothes to the markets, rolls the sleeves, tightens the silken knots, but they still skim the ground with every step, kick up clouds of dust. 

He’s so handsome, though, he’s told. So handsome. No wonder the Crown Prince is so enamored. No wonder he’d sat beside him for hours staring out into the ocean. 

But Jisoo is more handsome. So tall, so regal—even in hiding—looks so important that the people readily part for him. Clamber to impress him, offering their finest silks, pottery, furniture, books, jewelry.

But like a child, like the child that the Crown Prince claims he is, he hovers near the toys, near the sweets, stains his robes sticky with honey, jams, sugar. Buys cicada string buzzers, spinning tops, kites, ottogi and mulberry dolls, sweetbreads, dragon’s beards, rice cakes, sponge candy. 

He learns the merchants’ names, too, asks for them as he pays them. Then about their days. Their families. More specifics about their lives. Their homes. Their pets. How they’re faring in the stifling heat. Whether the flooding in the northern regions affected their livelihoods. What festivals are most exciting for them. What their favorite summer fruits are. 

Charmed, the merchants offer him gifts. Dollmaker Baekhyun, extra fabric for clothing. Baker Jaehwan, extra honey cookies, steamed bread. Grain dealer Joohyuk, seeds, barley for the birds. 

Jisoo tosses them as they settle on the grass near the river afterwards. Dizzy with the heat, nauseous, too, he tells him, he fans himself, then Joonmyun. He’s handsome even flushed with wild, stray tendrils sticking to his forehead. Maybe even more handsome. The Doh, they seem to have that gift. Or Joonmyun, he seems to have that curse. 

Jisoo charms the riverside musicians, too. Asks them to sing songs of the South, the West, songs of the earth-rattling, heaven-shaking kind of love that haunts and taunts young lovers, the terrifying, powerful, beautiful undeniable, impossible kind of love of stars and gods and natural disasters. 

He tips generously as he asks for more and more and more awful, painful songs. And it’s only Joonmyun’s hand on his wrist that has him finally ceasing his patronage. 

He asks Joonmyun to sing on their walk back. Charms him, too. 

It’s a fisherman's wife’s lament, aching with yearning, fragile with longing and rage and despair. Joonmyun’s voice quavers, quavers, quavers, but doesn’t break.

 

That night, Joonmyun turns to regard his sleeping husband in the sticky-hot darkness. The gleam of moonlight on the paleness of his cheek, his throat. The dance of shadows across the heaviness of his eyelashes, the fullness of his mouth. Remembers the golden haunting timbre of the riverside musician’s voice, the way it had swelled with emotion, feel me, just once more, my love, I’ve torn the stars from the sky for your sake, my love.

 

The Princes, they spend time together, too. Jisoo, he softens Kyungsoo’s smile, loosens his shoulder, too, and in his leisure time, after lectures, between meals, after rites, banquets, royal fittings, diplomatic meetings, Joonmyun watches them. How they race. Or fight with poles, with wooden swords. Or shoot arrows. Or wrestle. 

Like a great tree, Second Prince Jisoo topples, but he twists to tug Kyungsoo on top of him, guffawing as Kyungsoo stumbles, falls. Jisoo winds around him, twists, pins him to the ground. And Joonmyun from, his perch several paces away, bites back his own laughter when Kyungsoo—sweaty, disheveled, disconcertingly handsome—curses, thrashes, beats uselessly at Jisoo’s strong, unmoving shoulders. Their eyes lock, and Joonmyun rolls his shoulders forward as he drops his gaze. Face entirely too hot, he occupies himself with the flowers scattered at his sides. Rises to explore another part of the gardens when in his periphery, Jisoo tugs his brother upright, asks for another match.

 

But bolder, brasher, that night, as they curl onto their opposite sides of their bed, Joonmyun asks if the Second Prince bested the Crown Prince on the rematch, too. If he really is as athletic, as strong, as regal as they claim. 

Joonmyun likes the furrow of the Prince's heavy brows, the way that his mouth twists. Likes the fact there's no threat, no real heat behind it, his displeasure, irritation. Likes the way he slides just just just slightly closer to him as he speaks into the darkness of their room. 

“He lacks discipline. He lacks forethought. Tall men, they often do. They become so used to using their height, their muscles, that they fail to plan. They do not fight smart.” 

“So many of your men are tall. So many of the Doh soldiers must also be lacking.” 

It's too bold, he knows, and he follows it with a shaky laugh. 

“You should have more men like myself then,” he adds. “We learn to win in spite of our height, in spite of our weaknesses.” 

And the Crown Prince shakes his head so fervently that he dislodges a single, long, long strand of black hair. 

“Do you prefer him, too, my brother? Do you believe as the nobles and the advisors and people do—that he is—”

“Why would you ask me to pick between my little brother and my husband?” Falsely light, his voice only barely cracks, only slightly. 

“Do you, Princess?”

His eyebrows are still furrowed. And his lips purse. His hand hovers uselessly, purposelessly near Joonmyun’s shoulders, doesn’t doesn’t doesn’t touch. At least not yet. 

And there's heat. A threat, he thinks. Or an expectation. Or an appeal. 

He inhales shakily. Swallows. Watches Kyungsoo watch the movement. Feels the pulse of Kyungsoo's heat or threat or expectation or appeal. 

“I trust the stars,” he says, finally after three, four, awful, awful beats. “I trust their choices.” 

And he turns abruptly to halt further discussion.

 

It’s an abandoned topic of discussion. A fleeting almost argument. 

And there’s no residual tension at morning porridge, breakfast, tea. 

The Crown Prince meets his eyes from across the hall. Smiles with them. With the pretty plushness of his mouth, and Joonmyun drops his gaze once more, but not before returning it in kind.

 

And with Jisoo, with his soft edges, with the firm insistence of his easy, easy affection, Joonmyun is worn, sanded, smoothed, soothed. 

Even when performing official duties, ritual dances, temple rites, imperial banquets, diplomatic parties, shameless and boyish and bold and bright, Jisoo catches Joonmyun’s eyes, crinkles his entire face with the force of his smile. Or reaches out to curl his fingers around his wrist, elbow, in particularly bold, brash moments, the nape of Joonmyun’s neck. 

When Joonmyun lingers at the baths, summer-dizzy, drunk on steamed water and scented oil and perfumed silk, he blinks up at the vast, crushing sky, the unfurling stars, he feels the weight of them and how they echo through his bones, a blessing.

He’s learning, trying, trying, trying to trust.

 

The days melt into one another. Lazy and slow. Easier and easier and easier.

 

Joonmyun is lounging, nearly dozing by the ponds when the Second Prince steps into his line of sight, looming and tall, blotting out the sun. He brandishes a flower with a flick of his wrist, a theatrical bow of his head. And the white falls stark against Joonmyun’s blue robes. 

He collapses beside him to blink up at the lazy noonday sun, too, for several, several beats before speaking. “Some of the palace women, “ he starts, and Joonmyun turns to blink at him, squinting past the brightness of the sun, the way it glitters on the jewels os his crown. “The younger ones, they weave flower crowns for their beloveds, ask their darlings to wear them so others know they are taken, but,” Jisoo pouts, pensive, "I have never learned. None of the palace ladies have ever wanted to teach me.” 

Joonmyun’s hand spasms, squeezes around the stem, so hard, so sharp that it cracks in his palm. 

And oh, oh, oh maybe the easy brotherly comfort Joonmyun’s been imagining, maybe it isn’t so easy, maybe it isn’t so brotherly—not after all. 

“Am I—are you saying that I am your beloved? Your darling?”

Jisoo tenses suddenly, lips drawing in a tight, tense line, eyebrows pinching. And oh, they’re similar in their distress and discomfort, the Doh, their Princes.

His mouth opens closes once, twice, thrice, and Joonmyun’s heart, it lodges itself painful and overlarge in his throat. 

“You are my brother’s wife,” he says finally. “I didn’t mean, I don’t mean, and I don’t want the Crown Princess to mean—I was only speaking of it as a gesture.” He waves jerkily to Joonmyun’s crushed flower, then to his face, his hair. “You deserve to…you know you are as a beautiful and young as those men in the market. As worthy. I wish you’d have a flower crown, too.”

His hand hesitates, hovering near Joonmyun’s shoulder, trembling near his shoulder, tentative for the first time since Joonmyun’s known him. And it’s awful. He arches to jostle his hand, force the caress. Jisoo's hand spasms around the touch. 

“I was merely confirming,” Joonmyun says. 

And Jisoo’s eyebrows relax, lips wobble into a small, shaky smile. Reassured, he tips back, back, back to rest his head on Joonmyun’s lap. Joonmyun’s hands comb through what he can of his knotted hair, and Jisoo presses his smile into Joonmyun’s knee even as his eyes narrow in quiet thought.

“But I am sorry to say you’ve married the wrong brother for those sorts of inane displays of sentimentality. The Crown Prince, he doesn’t understand softness, I think. Or it scares him. He’s too hard, I think. Too hard on the surface. But you are his beloved. You are his darling.” 

He turns to blink up at him with the last statement, and Joonmyun swallows thickly, rubs his fingertips over Jisoo’s eyebrows to make his eyes flutter shut. He skips over the bridge of his nose, the pucker of his mouth before falling away. 

“Being his wife, it doesn’t mean I’m his beloved. Doesn’t mean he thinks I’m his darling.”

“I _know_ that, but somehow you’ve managed.”

Sudden warmth blooms in his chest, awful and debilitating and so, so bright. He swallows again, feels the warmth spread, spread, spread, concentrate in his cheeks. 

To be wanted. To be appreciated. To be respected. To be missed. To be—but no, no, he _can't_. No, he _doesn’t_ —

“He doesn’t know how to love the way we need,” Jisoo continues. “He—it’s why Sehun and Minseok were the only ones able to collapse his defenses. He’s such a soldier, such a fighter, sees love as a weakness, hates being weak. Doesn't trust those that make him feel weak.”

“And yet you think he is? For me, you think he is? For an enemy Crown Prince forced upon him by diplomacy and court astronomers?”

Jisoo nods fervently. “He is so _weak_ for you already, and he hates it. You have only known him for 2 years. Don’t know what it looks like when he loves, but I do.” 

And Joonmyun, he can’t allow himself to believe. 

“With all due respect, Your Highness, I think you’ve misunderstood him.” 

Jisoo’s nose crinkles, and the corners of his mouth twist downwards. “I will not ruin this afternoon or its perfect weather with arguing,” Jisoo declares, tipping his head back, arching his back like a cat, "but I am not. I know the Crown Prince. I know his heart.” 

His dark eyelashes cast harsh shadows on the hollows beneath his eyes and his plush lips purse. His profile is handsome, achingly so, like Kyungsoo’s, but in a different way. Sun-kissed and soft and young, innocent. Soft. 

The Second Prince, he’s tall, handsome, regal, but so young, so naive—still foolish enough to believe court lies. Still soft enough to be molded to other people’s whims. Still kind enough, pure enough to believe that it was his own choice. 

“I cannot make him want me.” And then because the words ring too heavy, too _wrong_ , too, too, too— “I do not care if he does not want me.”

“I am saying you need not worry about him wanting you.” 

Joonmyun swallows, scrapes his palms against the prickly grass at his sides, traces tingly fingertips over the pretty scattered petals of his flower. 

“You really are the softer brother. The one that was made to love.” 

Jisoo smiles, cradles Joonmyun’s hand, traces absent patterns along his knuckles with his fingertips. . “Yes, I will be married soon, too. My bride, my princess will be a woman. The court astronomer, he tells me.”

“Will you indulge her with inane displays of sentimentality?”

“Of _course_. I want to _shower_ her with flower petals, to have her walk on flower paths, too. I want our marriage bed, our entire house filled with them.”

“You would kill all those poor flowers for her sake.” 

“I would _save_ them, let them know what it’s like to touch her hair and her skin. It would be the sweetest, most merciful, most beautiful death.”

Joonmyun laughs—sharp, loud—and Jisoo flushes, eyelashes fluttering, shy, flustered, boyish, beautiful. 

A child, truly, a lovesick child. 

“Have you met her, your bride?”

“No, but I feel already that I will love her with my whole being. I trust the stars. I trust the advisors. I trust my own heart.”

“You are very, very trusting.”

“That is what the Crown Prince says, too,” he muses, turning, sitting up just the slightest to tug at loose blades of grass, then he’s turning again, eyes unnervingly solemn, soft. “I trust they chose hyung wisely, too. Both of my hyungs. The Crown Prince and Crown Princess.”

“You think we are each other’s beloveds. You want use darlings.” 

“I want you lovers as legendary, as beautiful Jiknyeo and Gyeonwu, but none of their tragedy.”

“I think it’s the tragedy that makes them so legendary.”

“Then I want you ordinary, but so in love that you forgive the stars for their abrupt declarations and exacting demands.”

“That is a terribly tall order.”

“I have faith.” He sits up abruptly, cocks his thumb skywards. The twinkling noon-day sun, the scattered clouds overhead. A dog, he’d told him earlier, motioning with his chin. A sheep. A boat. A bow. A frog. “The stars,” he clarifies. 

Joonmyun purses his lips. “Of course you do,” he says. “Will you join the servant girls at the loom for the cowherders festival this year?”

“I might. Weave something beautiful for my bride to be. I will ask the Royal Consort to teach me.” 

And he really is such a child. A fool. Built much too soft.

 

The Crown Prince, draped in his finest, insisting Joonmyun be draped in his finest, too, he escorts to the markets once more. 

And as last time, as a year ago, he curls his fingers around his elbow, amusingly protective and possessive, but he follows where he’s led. And he’s safe and solid and strong but not cutting, not scraping, not burning, not a reminder of the power that Joonmyun has lost. 

The Prince helps him try on pins, then bracelets, then earrings. 

And Joonmyun tries to see him through a child’s, a fool’s eyes. Indulges himself briefly with the absurd fantasy. 

They eat together on the grass, and Joonmyun briefly dazzled watches the way the sunlight glitters on his golden headpiece, the way it caresses all the strong, sharp, regal lines of his face. Dazzled, Joonmyun reaches out to do as the sun does, trace over the contours of his fine, handsome face. Kyungsoo startles then relaxes, stills as Joonmyun grazes over his eyebrows, the slope of his nose, the swell of his lips, the sharp, sharp quivering cut of his jawline. He skips over the hollow of his throat, too, the dip of his sternum, the strong, strong line of his chest. Kyungsoo’s hand squeezes at his knee, and his chest rises and falls unsteady and affected against Joonmyun’s palm. And Joonmyun continues over his belly, his waist.

_Here_ , he remembers. _Here, to make me suffer._

And lower, lower, lower—to kill his line of descendents, doom the Crown. 

His fingers tremble helplessly—not, not, not quite daring to—

“Princess,” Kyungsoo says, low and raw, but raised at the end like a question. And Joonmyun doesn’t _know_. He continues over Kyungsoo’s sides, his hips, his thighs, ends at his knees. The muscles shift beneath Joonmyun’s hand when Kyungsoo shudders, slow, aborted, but with feeling. 

“Prince,” Joonmyun responds. Kyungsoo’s hand spasms, turns, and Joonmyun squeezes that instead, hard, then loosening. Their fingers thread, and Kyungsoo spasms again, then traces tight, looping circles into the back of Joonmyun’s hand, fingernail grazing. 

“Princess,” he repeats. 

A child, a fool, Joonmyun lurches forward. Their temples bump, and warmth floods through his body. But the stars have broken so many things, such precious things—much more precious things, his title, his kingdom, his throne—have torn them from his bleeding hands. 

Jisoo, the second prince, he’d said, romantic and sentimental and naive as he is, he’d said—he’d _believed_ , he believes that the Crown Prince—

He’d urged Joonmyun to believe, too. 

But it aches, the Crown Prince's tolerance, his companionship, his acceptance. Too precious, too colorful, too bright, too, too, too soft to be real. The cold can return, blight it white and dead and broken and wilted again, he knows. He knows, and it hurts. 

And it confuses him. 

And he hurts. 

Kyungsoo’s nose skim his cheekbone, voice raises in shaky, shaky question, and terrified, confused, hurting, hurting, hurting, Joonmyun jerks away.

 

Jisoo’s bride-to-be is selected by the next full moon, then taken to a detached palace to be trained. For the Doh, their methods, their rituals, their procedures, their expectations, all the awful, terrifying suffocation of them. 

And Jisoo thrums with nervous elation. Alternately with apologetic, subdued joy. 

Even more boyish in his lovesick anticipation. With his bitten lips and trembling fingers and rushed, breathless daydreams. Of how he’ll read her poetry in the gardens, hold her hand during festivals, take her to the river, the fields, the markets, the mountains, the ocean if she desires. Love her with his whole body. Thank the stars always for their gift. 

His sigh is dreamy, wistful, and it paints his eyelashes heavy, his cheeks pink, his face beautiful. The Doh’s have also that gift, or Joonmyun that curse once more.

 

The Second Prince’s wedding—requiring less preparation, less theatre, less opulence, less ostentation—it’s hosted at the next new moon. Bookended by ritual dances, ritual cleanses. 

And it’s a spectacle still, a splendor still. Understated as it is, it’s still a terrifyingly potent showcase of royal authority. Joonmyun can appreciate the grandeur of it so much more when he’s not a participant. The pompous display of splendor and wealth and power and majesty when it no longer has him trembling with fear. 

The pound of drums, of gongs echoes through his veins. The vibrant flutter of fans dazzles his eyes. And the burst of horns. And the swelling mass of people. And the weight of his golden, jewel-encrusted crown. And the press of his lacquered throne to his spine. 

It dazzles him.

The girl, the bride to be, is dwarfed completely in layers of silk and gold and glass, trembling, too, he can see as he had been, guided, too he can see as he had been, arrested, too as she bows, is bowed to, in turn. 

She’s from the West, swallowed up enough generations aback to not tremble with the distinct humiliation of conquest. There had at been blood then, though, at least burned fields, at least fallen buildings, at least war banners, at least, a ruthless and efficient honesty to it, at least. 

And she isn’t trembling as hard as he had, at least. 

She isn't a deposed Prince(ss) but has enough purity in her blood, enough purity to her bones to make her worthy, more than worthy. 

“Their children will be so beautiful, so powerful,” Joonmyun notes as they bow deep and pious, and at his side, the Crown Prince’s face twists with discomfort. “Their children, their bones. " He catches his words, dips his head. "I do not mean—I do not think.”

“But the people will.” His breath ghosts along Joonmyun's cheek. Warm. Wet. So, so close. Joonmyun quells the shudder crawling up his spine. 

"They already do. In the markets. They already do. They do not know his disposition. Only that he is tall and handsome and strong. If they knew, they wouldn't, but the market people never know.”

“You've been at the markets again. You aren’t meant to go without royal guards.”

“Royal guards will keep me from hearing the gossip.” 

The Crown Prince’s sigh is loud, exasperated. “Do not be so flippant. It is dangerous. You think—you think it’s better when they don’t recognize you, but some do. And that leaves you too vulnerable.”

“Were you ever attacked at the markets, Your Highness?”

His lips quirk, and he shakes his head—hard. “You act as if it is a matter of location, not opportunity. 

“You were attacked in your bed or on the fields. Or at sea. Or in the mountains. Not in the markets.”

“Because I had a royal guard.”

“No, because the commoners have better things to do than attack royalty when buying spices and potions.”

“Crown Princess—”

“I only go once a month, you know. You leave so often and for so _long_. You are allowed because this is yours. But I only leave once a month.This palace, it’s like a prison. A gilded prison. You leave so often. You always have a chance and excuse to leave. You do not understand.”

“I leave with my royal guards. With my soldiers. With my sword.”

Irritation prickles in the nape of his neck. 

“Your concern is flattering, Your Highness, but unnecessary. I am not a child. I always return unharmed. I am not helpless. I am not a child.” 

The Prince sighs even more loudly, even more exasperated. "Princess," he tries, and his fingers curl around Joonmyun's wrist, placating, coaxing, and the prickling irritation only worsens. Bright. Burning. Burning. 

_I want to pretend that I’m a shrimp if only for just a moment_ , he wants to tell him. _I want to pretend, if only for just a moment, that I’m free_. But the words get stuck in his throat and he has only Kyungsoo's scowl, the aching need to melt it, to salvage this conversation.

“Do you think so little of Wonshik’s training?” he tries, voice too tight, not nearly as light as he wills it. "He is the best soldier, I was told. You insisted he train me for a reason, I was told. The others, too.”

The Prince’s lips twist up in an bemused smile, and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. But it’s enough. Close enough. “He only bested me once, and I was ailing at the time.”

“Twice. I saw at the war games.”

“My thigh was still healing. He only bests me when I am in recovery. Only when fighting an ailing man.” 

“That’s still twice. And he told me once to ask about what happened in Gaegyeong.”

At his side, Kyungsoo stiffens, inhales sharply. “He is hardly the fittest,” he protests, voice rising then falling sharply with his argument. “I mean, if we only use that metric then maybe, but—but there is archery, swordsmanship, hand to hand combat. His aim, you know, is _incredibly_ bad. And his _stamina_.” Kyungsoo waves his hand dismissively. “Wonshik is not—I have told you about the problem with tall men, Princess. Wonshik is a very tall man.” 

“Train me then if he is really so lacking,” Joonmyun taunts. “Keep me safe.” Kyungsoo nods, suddenly solemn, and it makes something small and vulnerable twist in his gut. 

His sigh is softer, his fingers—hesitant on Joonmyun’s wrist—even softer. And his voice, it’s softest of all. Coaxing. Cajoling. 

“At least take my dagger. When you go, at least take my dagger.”

“The one with the protection amulets? The one that is only useful if you know how to use it,” he teases, but Kyungsoo doesn’t return his smile. And it isn't right when he looks like he means it. Isn't isn't isn't—

“It’s better to be cautious. Overcautious. Please,” he adds. 

In his periphery, Jisoo's painted bride shimmers, and Joonmyun turns bodily towards it, bodily away. Ignores the heavy, heavy weight of the Crown Prince’s concerned eyes. 

“I just—I do not understand how you were ever a Crown Prince. When you are so utterly _careless_. I know the South also has enemies. You had a standing army. You controlled all the ports. You halted foreign expansion. You _must_ have—”

“You are ruining the festivities, Crown Prince. Look at how handsome the Second Prince looks. Look at how tall he stands.”

 

And the next afternoon, after lectures, the Crown Prince bows his head, bites his lip, furrows his eyebrows, reaches into his robes. 

“It is—the merchant said it was the most beautiful one they had. The jade, it is—protection. For when you put yourself in harm's way. When you go to markets, I mean. When you go riding. When you insist on claiming my kingdom as your own. It is to keep you safe since you insist—”

Joonmyun's mouth twitches into a smile. "You sound like the Grand General. With your superstitions.” 

Kyungsoo's lips twitch, too, but he doesn't otherwise acknowledge the comment. 

His gaze, heavy, heavy, intentional, it skitters along his skin, curls around his throat. Joonmyun swallows—hard. Breathes—hard. 

The silence stretches, pregnant but not uncomfortable, for three or four beats. 

"May I?"

Joonmyun nods. 

Kyungsoo’s hand trembles as he slides the pin through Joonmyun’s hair. Clumsy, he scrapes accidentally against Joonmyun’s scalp, loosens several strands of hair. He brushes the locks away, laughing shakily. His fingers linger afterwards, then hover, purposeless and unsettling near his temple. 

Swallowing hard, Joonmyun squeezes Kyungsoo’s elbow, arresting. He can feel Kyungsoo’s eyes on him, how heavy and dark they are. 

“Beautiful. You are—it is—” 

“Thank you.”

Kyungsoo swallows once, visible and hard, then nods. Excuses himself. And Joonmyun smooths the wrinkles in his robes. 

It burns. He burns.

 

Joonmyun wears it to the markets the next week, but curled into the folds of his robes, fingers smoothing absently over the fine jade carving. 

He hears gossip again. Southern discord again. A royal messenger captured, tortured. The South is unruly still. Overrun with rebels, still. And the Crown Prince still not strong enough to control them. Not even after stealing their Prince. And oh, the Second Prince, he is newly married, but he should accompany him. He is so tall. He is strong. He is such a soldier. People cannot help but respect him. Nobody can resist his charm. Not even the South. 

Lowering his gaze, ignoring the churn of unease in his stomach, Joonmyun shops for the Crown Prince. Pays with Doh coins. The inscriptions leave indentations on his fingertips, his palms, linger, ache long, long, long afterwards.

 

“Your Prince is leaving,” Jisoo tells him in the gardens that evening. The palace maids repeat in hushed whispers in his baths. The Prince confirms as they slide into the opposite sides of their bed. 

He must leave soon. Must leave immediately. 

Some of the nobles, they have been ignoring the former king’s orders, refusing to pay tribute, paying soldiers to reclaim lost territory. It is dangerous. He is taking all of his strongest men. His best weapons. His fastest horses. Preparing for a true battle. 

The reclamation will be bloodier than the original victory, Joonmyun realizes. The Doh will finally earn the right to call themselves conquerors. Will finally leave bloodied fields. Broken corpses. Razed cities. 

“And you are explaining to me why you cannot take me.” 

He shakes his head softly, and his eyes look haunted in the pale moonlight. “I cannot risk taking you, Princess. I do not even know how long. I am asking only my best men.” 

“I am not your best?”

He smiles, rueful, sad. “I hate to break my promises.”

He stretches his arm out, pauses, hesitates, brushes trembling fingers soft, soft, soft against his cheekbone. Joonmyun’s eyes clench shut at the featherlight caress. It pulses through his body. Sharp, sharp, sharp. 

A child, a fool, he parts his lips, shudders. 

“I understand,” he says, grateful when the Prince finally, finally pulls away.

 

The preparations are rushed, tense, a flurry of sudden activity, maids and soldiers and guards flitting about the palace to ensure all is in order, all is arranged. 

Joonmyun sees Kyungsoo only in passing, only by chance, only as a shadow, a fleeting body, the flicker of gold in his periphery, the warmth of a body in his bed. 

Barely has a chance to ensure he is also in order, has also arranged before the Doh men in marching in a blood-red procession towards the palace gates. 

Bold, brash, a child, a fool, Joonmyun stumbles after them, pulls his husband away. The Crown Prince staggers, but follows where he’s led. Smiles at him beneath his heavy, heavy armor. 

"Before you leave," Joonmyun manages, panting, rifling through his robes, dropping his gaze as he presses his gift into the Crown Prince’s palm. "I know you don’t believe in them. I do not either, but I would rather you stay safe.” He braves a glance upwards, sees lips quirk into a half smile, teasing and smug. Infuriating. Bites his lip hard. 

“My Princess is such a wonderful—”

“They were blessed at the monastery.” Joonmyun swallows, exhales, fingers fumbling over the smoothed, dragon scales carved into the jade. “Last year,” he starts. “I know it was not very serious for you, but—I worried. We all worried. The Southern rebels, I remember them. I know that they are ruthless. My family—I would prefer you stay safe.” 

“Will you nurse me again if I am hurt, Princess? Consult astronomers for my sake?”

“Will you harangue me for trying?”

And it sours, his smile. Nearly a grimace. His fingertips bump against Joonmyun’s, twist around a charm. 

“Thank you for caring for my health. Even when I made it difficult. I will try to stay safe for your sake.” 

His voice tilts at the end, teasing and light. And it’s a full smile now, teasing and light and unnervingly beautiful and just for him.

“I also—I know it is dangerous. I only ask—”

He presses another pouch into his hands. 

“I ask you only to try if possible.” 

Kyungsoo, he isn't sure he'll be able to visit his family, much less deliver his letters, his presents, but he cradles Joonmyun's silken pouch close— hair pins, incense, decorative amulets, jade laced daggers, mulberry dolls, celadon bowls—promises to try.

Lingers, lingers, lingers, hesitates. And something itches beneath Joonmyun’s skin. 

“Princess,” he tries, and his eyes are heavy and beautiful, and Joonmyun’s skin bristles, muscles tense, eyes flutter shut when Kyungsoo reaches forward to whisper over the jade of his protection charm. His fingers curl, graze along his forehead. 

Then his breath, then just the briefest, briefest, softest, softest, most fleeting pressure of his lips. So brief, so soft, so fleeting that Joonmyun nearly thinks he’s imagined it, but Kyungsoo is still so breathtakingly close and his hands are trembling and his lips are quivering and his eyes are so, so, so full of something bright and warm and terrifying. 

It burns. It hurts. He burns. He hurts. And Joonmyun's heart twists and twists and twists so tight it nearly shatters. 

Quaking, Joonmyun’s hand bumbles forward, palm scraping over the encrusted jewels on Kyungsoo’s’ fist before curling inwards, spasming then squeezing. Kyungsoo squeezes back. 

“I will see you soon, Princess.”

 

And Joonmyun, he's abandoned—again. And he aches—again.

Lingering at the fronts gazes, scraping over the stone columns, he watches him go, abandoned, aching, aching, aching. 

Gleaming in his armor, strong and broad and regal and forbidden, his Crown Prince glitters, dazzles, stings as he leaves.

 

The cold creeps greedily, steadily over the palace in his absence. Death, too, stains the trees, chases away the birds, saps the fields of their color. 

The Prince, the man who would be king, he isn't there for their harvest. Their celebration, their rites, their cleansing rituals, isn’t there for his wife either. And the Second Prince’s murmured observations, quiet touches, they aren't enough. 

For the lover’s festival, Jisoo joins Joohyun at the loom, weaves his fingers bloody. Then crushes a field of flowers for his beloved. And for their sakes, for the sweet, sweet promise of touching her hair, her skin, he scatters a withering grave of rainbow petals. 

And Joonmyun, abandoned, he aches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for how Long this has taken. i know that infrequent, month long waits between chapter updates is why people Don't like to read ongoing fic  
> but thanks so much for sticking through it  
> gonna try to make this fic a priority again


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